Matchbox Dreams to Podcasting Legends: Mark Greene’s Journey Through the Automotive World

Mark Greene - Founder & Host for Cars Yeah!

He calls himself “an incurable automotive enthusiast” interviewing successful entrepreneurs who live a lifestyle around their passion for vehicles of all types: be it cars, motorcycles, trucks or something more.

Contact: Mark Greene at mark@carsyeah.com | N/A | Visit Online!

               

This episode of the Break/Fix podcast features an in-depth interview with Mark Greene, the founder, producer, and host of the Cars Yeah! podcast. Mark discusses his extensive career in the automotive world, starting from his early passion for cars influenced by his father, detailing his significant role at Griot’s Garage, and eventually launching Cars Yeah!, a five-day-a-week podcast dedicated to inspiring automotive enthusiasts. Mark shares personal stories, including his racing experiences, his love for motorcycles, and a deep dive into his most cherished car, a Porsche 930 Turbo known as the ‘Orange Crush.’ He also offers insights into his life philosophy, such as the importance of helping others, the value of experiencing life over accumulating things, and words of wisdom for aspiring podcasters. The episode concludes with a heartfelt Q&A where Mark emphasizes the importance of time and pursuing one’s passion.

• Let’s talk about the who/what/where/when and how of Mark Greene, the petrol-head. How did you get your start in the automotive world? Did you come from a car family? Racing family? What were some of the cars that influenced you as a child (aka “the poster on the wall car”)
• You mentioned racing a few times, let’s talk about your racing and performance driving history?
• The one that got away: The Porsche 930 “Orange Crush” story
• You were the president of Griot’s Garage and part of the company for nearly 20 years. What was that like? What changed/inspired you to create CarsYeah!
• If people aren’t aware of CarsYeah podcast, it’s one of the leading automotive podcasts out there, on the air for over 8 years and 2100+ episodes – so for those that are hearing about it for the first time, what is CarsYeah all about?
• Before we wrap up, Let’s put you in the hot seat, how about some CarsYeah inspired PitStop questions?

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder How did they get that job or become that person?

The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: Our guest calls himself an incurable automotive enthusiast, interviewing successful entrepreneurs who live a lifestyle around their passion for vehicles of all types. Be it cars, motorcycles, trucks, or something more. Guest interviews include industry leaders, celebrities, racers, artists, builders. If it’s related to the automotive world, you’ll more than likely find it in his huge catalog of episodes.

Crew Chief Brad: Our guest takes you on his journey, gets under the hood and aims to provide his listeners with inspiration with us [00:01:00] tonight on break fix is Mark green, the founder, producer, and host of cars. Yeah. Cars. Yeah. Is a five day a week podcast where Mark talks with inspiring automotive enthusiasts, people who have wrapped their passion for automobiles into their careers and lives, and we’re delighted to be sharing his story with all of you, so as he puts it, sit down, buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, Brad. And welcome to break fix mark for this boomerang crossover episode.

Mark Greene: Guys, Eric, Brad, thanks for having me break fix. Let’s see, what are we going to break and fix today? I’ve got some tools handy and I’m ready to go. So thanks for having me. This is awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: If there’s a claw hammer in your toolbox, you’re definitely ready to work with us in the pit crews.

Mark Greene: Wait a minute, a claw hammer?

Crew Chief Eric: The sign of a real mechanic.

Mark Greene: Okay, well I do have one of those too, so no worries.

Crew Chief Eric: Like every good story, there’s always an origin. So let’s talk about the who, what, where, When and how of Mark Green, the petrol head, how did you get your start in the automotive world? Did you [00:02:00] come from a car family or a racing family?

Mark Greene: Not a racing family and kind of a car family. My father grew up on a farm in Texas and was the only one of five kids that came West, went out West. He became an architect, met my mom in college. Actually in Oklahoma, and then they came out west and I grew up in La Jolla, California, which is in Southern California, just north of San Diego.

It’s kind of a beach community, grew up surfing at the beach every day, that whole lifestyle skateboarding, biking. But my father, when I was about. Five. I think it was, he bought a 1949

Crew Chief Eric: MGTC.

Mark Greene: And when you’re a little kid that age, you’re used to, I think we had a, he called it a Pontiac lemon. It was a Lamar, but it was a lemon.

It was the worst car. One of the worst cars we ever had. The other was an Audi long time ago though. And when he brought this little car home for me as a little boy, I just went. Is this for me? Because it was like a little toy compared to that car. And then the later car, we had the first gen of the Oldsmobile Vista [00:03:00] Cruiser.

I thought it was the coolest thing. Plus it had the steering wheel on the wrong side. It was on the right side. So when you got in the car, you set where the driver was. My dad had a spare steering wheel and those old cars had these Banjo steering wheels that were really unique, cool, super lightweight.

And he used to give me the spare one and we would drive, I would sit there and pretend like I was driving. And we pull up next to people and they’d look down and go, who’s that kid driving the car? And I’d hold the wheel up and laugh. And we had a great time. I really think that car is what put the bug into me for sports cars, especially European sports cars, which we’ll talk about today.

And I always remember and remembering five years old, it’s getting harder and harder at this point in my life. But I do remember one day we went to the hardware store and we went inside. My dad was an architect. He was always building things and designing things. And they had this little display on the counter called Matchbox pre Hot Wheels.

And I said, dad, look at the cars. And he said, well, I’ll buy you one. He bought me the first one, which was a red Jaguar XKE [00:04:00] coupe. And I still have it. And that was kind of the beginning of the collection of the Hot Wheels, which led to Matchbox, which led to building model cars and go karting and minibikes and motorcycles and cars.

And there we go. And that’s where it really all took off from.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re entrenched in the car world from a very early age. That’s awesome.

Mark Greene: Well, yeah. And it’s interesting, my mom was never into cars. My dad was into his car for a while. And then as I got older and his responsibilities grew, the idea of an MGTC to drive to work every day was a little bit ridiculous.

Car. Many mornings had to hand crank the thing. My mom didn’t like it because in the sixties, women were those big, what’s the name of the Simpsons? Wife? The beehive. Yeah. The women wore the teased hair and my mom would have to put a scarf on because otherwise the hair would fly all over the place. She didn’t really care for that car that much, but I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

I remember the big grill and the dashboard was. Supposed to be wood, but the guy he bought it from had taken that off and put an engine turned [00:05:00] aluminum dashboard. You know, back then I didn’t know how that was made, but all these little circles and these beautiful Jaeger gauges that were kind of green tinted old fashioned, and it was super cool.

And when my mom and dad would take my sister and I, there’s a little platform behind the seats. There’s no back seats in those cars, of course. There’s a little platform where you actually sit up above the driver and the passenger. My dad bought us these, he went into the surplus military store, these goggles and leather caps, like flight caps.

And there was a little bar across the back of the seats. And he used to say, If you’re a chicken, you’ll hang on to the bar. That’s the chicken bar. Now, of course, these days he would have been arrested for child endangerment because, you know, super dangerous. I mean, if we’d already been hit or something, we got flying out of that thing.

No seatbelts. It was like going on a rollercoaster ride. Every time we went for a ride, it was super fun. Good memories.

Crew Chief Brad: Looking, you know, in your background there, I see you’ve got the nine 11 on your wall. Were there any other cars that maybe your family hadn’t owned that influenced you as well as a child?

What were some of the posters on your wall?

Mark Greene: Posters were [00:06:00] Porsche racing cars primarily because I’ve just been a Porsche guy forever. That started with a neighbor up the street. He was kind of this cool dude because he was a bachelor. I would say he was probably in his mid twenties or something. I’m thinking he was some kind of a trust fund kid because we lived in La Jolla, which was a more affluent neighborhood.

He had his own house. He wasn’t married and he had cool cars. And one of them was a 58, 59 Porsche Carrera. Speedster, that car was cool. And I just say, take me for a ride. And he was a surfer. So he would take me down to the beach and we’d stick our surf boards. Believe it or not. Now, back then the boards were short, but we’d stick them behind the seats, nose down, and he’d put this strap around.

I mean, we drive down to the beach. We were just five, six blocks away and go surfing. And I think that influenced me along with many of my friends, parents, fathers had very nice, Sports cars. A lot of them were doctors and lawyers and business owners and finance guys. And so I would go to friends houses and the first thing I would do is what’s in your garage?

And I’m talking about things like Miras and Jaguar XKEs and [00:07:00] the first 450 SL Mercedes and old Alphas and these cars that these dads would have. And I’d go visit friends and I’d End up in the garage with their dads. In fact, junior high girl, I was very smitten with she invited me to her birthday party.

I thought, Oh man, this girl likes me. And I went over to her house and she said, you know, my dad has a Porsche Speedster and I know you like cars. So I went out in the garage. And the whole rest of the birthday party, I didn’t even attend. I was in the garage. She was very mad at me. Never invited me over again, but I spent the whole time out in the garage with her dad because he was getting it ready to take it to a Concord event.

And so I was helping him clean it. I remember Q tips in the tires and we put these wrappers on the tires. And next day I actually, my dad took me down to the car show where it was and he let me sit in it. Very fortunate to grow up in that community where there was lots of very cool cars. So you could see them Southern California.

There’s cool cars everywhere anyway. So, yeah, but on the wall for me, we’re either surfing pictures and posters at a surfer [00:08:00] magazine or posters of European sports, racing cars, mostly nine 11s, of course, nine 17s, five 50 spiders, three 56s, all those kinds of things. And the, the, on the wall here is a painting from a listener in Russia.

And he painted that for me and mailed it to me, got a picture of me in my Porsche 930 turbo. And I called my orange crush. We’re going to be talking about that car today, I think. And he sent that to me and that’s me in the car. If you look at it, look, actually it looks like me. And I thought, what a nice guy.

I invite him to be on the show, but his English is still, he’s working on it. We’ll get them on the show on these days. Yeah. And if you walk through my house, I have a wife who’s a saint. We’ve been married 38 years in about a week. And all the pictures and paintings in our house are all past guests, photographers, artists, painters, and so forth.

So the whole house is car stuff and a couple of guitars. Cause she’s played guitars a lot. The fender straddle in the back is a limited edition hot rod. Fender [00:09:00] Shadowcaster. So makes it kind of cool.

Crew Chief Eric: So Mark, I think it’s time for our first pit stop question of any in this episode.

Mark Greene: All

Crew Chief Eric: right. So what we like to do is throw in these just random off the cuff opinion questions.

And in this case, you’ve named dropped some serious cars. If our listeners were paying attention, things like three 56 speedster and Mira and Alfa Romales and all sorts of other things. So that begs the question in your opinion, what is the sexiest car of all time?

Mark Greene: Now this is very difficult because I have a saying, if it rolls on rubber, I probably love it or some aspect of it.

But boy, sexy is a specific word. So I’m going to stick to that. And I’m probably going to answer this in a way that a lot of my regular Cards Out listeners may go, what? But there’s a reason for this. One would be Lamborghini Miura. That car when it came out, and I remember there was a doctor in town in La Jolla that had one, it was orange, and I just couldn’t believe that thing when I saw him drive by.

And I wanted to go find that guy. I did end up finding him actually. To me that car [00:10:00] is sexy because it just got these curves and the eyelashes and the headlights. And the way it’s designed. I grew up with a dad who was an architect and a designer. He really influenced me from a design aesthetic. And I ended up going to school and getting a degree in both business administration, but also in design.

And I worked in design for 11 years. That would be one. Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale. Again, round, voluptuous, kind of the same as one of my favorite cars, 550 Spyder, although I guess I could call the 550 Spyder sexy, but the Stradale goes to a whole nother level. I mean, it’s just, it’s Italian. I mean, hey, the Italians know how to make sexy cars.

Now let’s go to England because the Aston Martin DBR2 has a lot of those same feelings. You see what’s going on here. 50, 60 sports cars, kind of my background. So that Aston Martin to me, and there was a local guy up here that is in the Pacific Northwest that had one of those cars, used to bring it to the historic races when I was racing.

And it’s just, That [00:11:00] car to me is just so, so cool. Of course, you can’t forget the Jaguar XKE, probably one of the sexiest cars ever made. The Series 1. Although I had a detailing business, I 14, and one of my clients had a 72 V12. I used to ride my bike down to South Mission Beach and drive it back home. And when I drove that car, I just, I still feel it, smell it.

That started to get a little clunky, those 72s, that third gen, I think it was, but the first gen Jaguars, I mean, it’s so delicate. It’s just little, wonderful little piece of automobile that I think everybody has to say it’s one of their favorites. So I could go on and on, but those, I pick those as kind of my first choices when you use that word.

Crew Chief Eric: And the best part about the last one that you selected, which does come up quite often. The E Type Jag is probably one of the best looking designs of all time, right up with the Miura and some of the other ones you mentioned. But the irony in the E Type is that as beautiful as the cars were that were coming out of Ferrari, Enzo always said that the E Type, [00:12:00] Was the best looking car.

Mark Greene: Some people are probably saying why there is, is there not a Ferrari in there? But to me, one of my favorite Ferraris is the 250 short wheelbase, but that’s not a sexy car. That’s a masculine car. I mean, it’s a little bulldog. Got that sense of feel. And I love that car. It’s spectacular. The GTO, I guess you could say sexy, but again, I think of that more as a masculine race car type thing.

The TRs, 250s, I mean, I don’t know, but I’ll just limit it to those. Cause we could talk on that question for a long

Crew Chief Brad: time. You hinted when we asked you that question that you could find something you like about pretty much anything that rolls on rubber. So we’re going to ask you what’s the ugliest car of all time and put that statement to the test.

Mark Greene: Yeah, I live by a motto that my mom taught me, and many people have heard this. If you don’t have anything nice to say. Don’t say anything at all. I’m not going to answer that question because there’s lots of them that I think were probably cars designed by committee and you just kind of look at them and go, what were [00:13:00] they thinking?

And even some of the new supercars, I kind of went. Okay. How many people got into this kitchen and threw some salt and spices into the pot? They kind of went a little bit the wrong way, but ugly, every car has something about it that has an element that’s interesting. And when you have a design background, you always look for that in everything, even if it’s something that’s not so great.

Take a great piece of art, for example, you go, that’s a really Weird painting. When you start looking at little elements of it, you’ll find something you kind of like, or you think is kind of interesting. So if you’ll allow me, I think I’m not going to answer that question, or at least I answered it the way I just did.

If you’ll let me get away with that.

Crew Chief Eric: I believe that’s the automotive equivalent to pleading the fifth mark, but we’ll take it. It’s okay.

Mark Greene: Yeah. I hate those guys to plea the fifth, but I’ve never been on, I’ve never been in court in front of a judge. I’d probably do the same thing. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: That was the wrong answer.

The correct answer is Pontiac Aztec.

Mark Greene: [00:14:00] Here’s something funny about that. My wife and I just started rewatching the breaking bad series. And I remember that car, of course, in that, and I chose that car. I’m sure for a reason, but yeah, that’s a tough one to like, I’m still trying to find the right angle on that thing. I shake my head and go, who, what, why?

I wasn’t in the room. And when you start getting into General Motors, and I’ve had a lot of designers, car designers on my show, and they talk about the difficulties of being in a big company and you think, Oh, this guy designed the car. It’s never that case. Now, maybe back in the day, Scaliette, Vittorini were designed the Bertone’s.

I mean, all those guys, DeGiario’s. The lure car, there’s just too many people in the room and it’s kind of like that scene out of Ferrari versus Ford and that great line where he’s in the office with Mr. Ford and he said, you know, I saw that red envelope get passed around among five or six hands. That’s not how you do things, not how you win races.

And I would assume it’s also not how you design cars. [00:15:00] We’ll leave it at that.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. So let’s jump back in the timeline a little bit here. And you foreshadowed a couple of things. You talked about working with your friends, three 56 and preparing it for a concord. Then you dropped a hint about starting a detailing business at 14 years old.

So a lot of people may know you now for cars. Yeah. But some of us remember Mark Green as the president of Griot’s garage. So take us on the journey of how you went from From this inspiring automotive enthusiast at the age of 10 or so to being the president of Griot’s garage.

Mark Greene: I studied graphic design at a state of business in college.

And my first job was actually in a design firm in San Diego. Part of our many client lists were catalogers back in the day. This is pre internet. So that’s how you, your mailbox was full of catalogs. And I received a catalog in the mail from a guy named Richard Griot, his first one. And in fact, I had a white 72S on the cover, which ended up being my car for a while.

[00:16:00] It’s back in his garage now. However, we were designing catalogs at Warner Design. I worked with another Richard, Richard Warner. So I called on Richard because I get this catalog. My wife said, I came home. She said, Hey, check this out. You guys should be designing this catalog. And I looked at it and I went, yeah, we should.

It needs some help. So I contacted him multiple times. He was very busy back then. There was just. He, another guy and a lady answering the phone. That was it. It was the very beginnings. And so I think I had to call him seven or eight times. And I finally, he just said, I have somebody, I don’t need you. Well, our firm was the first company in San Diego to use Mac computers.

Now it was the Mac SE, if anyone remembers those little goofy box, but you could design things on it using PageMaker. There might’ve been another software before that. I talked him into allowing me to come up by saying, I’m going to come up and buy a bunch of stuff from you. I’m not going to pitch you. I just want to buy some stuff.

And what’s he going to say? No. I was driving an 84 Porsche Cabriolet at the time. I drove up there in that car, parked right in front of his window. So he would [00:17:00] notice it. I figured this guy’s a car guy, has a Porsche on his first catalog. Long story short, got to know him, landed the account. We started designing the catalog for him and we became friends.

After a couple of years, he said, you know, I’d like you to come on board and help me build this brand. I still need somebody to do the marketing. And Wear a lot of other hats. I always say I wore so many hats at Griot’s. I wore all my hair off, which is pretty true. And so I decided to leave the firm I was with.

I’d been there for 10, 11 years. And now I worked with Griot’s for about two and a half years before I became a real employee. In fact, for about three, four months, I was working both jobs. I would do my job in the design firm. And then at night I would do stuff with him. And I did that for like three months.

It was not easy. Didn’t want to leave my old business partner in the lurch. He was trying to find somebody new. We built that business up. So we had a lot of clients and I joined Griot. So I was there for over 20 years, essentially. And initially I was, we all had titles, but we did everything. I did all the graphic design and advertising, [00:18:00] started traveling around the world, looking for products that we could brand.

We were trying to develop. The brand, part of it was pretty quick for me to see that the real value was the car care. There was only three or four car care products. When I started there, we were selling a lot of hard goods. The problem with hard goods is when somebody buys a tool, they break it and they expect a new one.

They never buy that tool again. But when you buy a bottle of wax, you use it up and you buy it again. We started steering down that path. Long story short, I was there for a long, long time, did a lot of things, eventually became the president of the company and ran the company. And as the company grew, we decided very quickly, he’d already had in his mind, we were going to move out of the state of California.

We were some of the earliest APs from California because it just wasn’t conducive to business taxes, name it. There was a lot of challenges, even 30 years ago, not as many as are now. So we came up here to the Northwest and I came up here kind of crying and screaming because I had this. Porsche Cabriolet that when it rained, it leaked because those old Porsches didn’t have [00:19:00] waterproof tops.

Believe it or not, they got saturated water, started dripping right through them. I remember in the owner’s manual, it said top is not conducive to inclement weather.

Crew Chief Eric: Very German explanation. I love it.

Mark Greene: Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, there’s no cup holder either. Shouldn’t be drinking while you’re driving. I sold that car.

I bought a, 911 coupe Carrera 2. We moved the business up here. Eventually we ended up buying a company that was making products for us so we can make our own car care products. We moved the manufacturing to the Midwest because of shipping. We had a warehouse that we built. Shipping was a lot less expensive from the Midwest than Pacific Northwest.

Most of our clients were California, Florida, that region. Learned a lot, traveled a lot, did a lot, did everything. And during that time started racing, which we may talk about vintage racing. It was a wonderful experience. I learned how to do so many things in business. We built brands, we built products. I traveled and met people.

We branded things. We find people in Germany that made screwdrivers and we’ll help them redesign them. In a way we thought was better and put our name on them. So I learned [00:20:00] a massive amount of information and knowledge in that time period. And it was really, really fun. We were fortunate because Richard had the means to expand the business whenever we needed to.

So he bought this old Coca Cola bottling building, and he tasked me with designing it into our new corporate headquarters. Kind of said, do whatever you want. And so I got to bring that old design aspect into my career, marketing, passion for cars, products, travel, racing, associating with clients. It was, it was really a really great time.

Crew Chief Eric: So since you have that design background and the vision, and you got started with Griots from the very early days, are you responsible then for the current logo? And if so, there’s a debate always about what the car actually is. Cause it’s kind of ambiguous. Sort of think it’s British, could be an AC, could be a JAG, could be an MG.

So what’s the answer? What’s the secret?

Mark Greene: Well, I’m not going to reveal the secret because I didn’t do the logo. The logo was already designed when I came on [00:21:00] board. They had printed the first catalog and mailed it to me. We started producing, I think it was the Third catalog. Now, keep in mind at that time, Grails was doing four catalogs a year.

And then there were three titles of each catalog. So at one point we were doing like 17 or 18 a year. However, that was already done. I wouldn’t say I was stuck with it because I think it’s a nice logo and it’s great. But I had an ongoing debate with Richard all the time that that was a Jaguar. No, it isn’t.

It’s no car. I go, yeah, some car it’s, you know, and I would even overlay some of the Profiles of one twenties with that car. And they almost were exactly the same to this day. I don’t even know who designed that logo. I’d like to talk to them and find out where they got the inspiration because you don’t typically design in a vacuum ideas come from your surroundings or places you go as a designer.

I know that. So I don’t, I wish I could reveal the secret, but, and if Richard knows that he never revealed it to me in all the years I was there, he vehemently said, no, it’s not a Jaguar. But in my world. [00:22:00] It’s a 120. So

Crew Chief Eric: see, so this is what makes it fun. And maybe one day we will find out and listeners, if you know the secret, we’d love to hear about it.

Mark Greene: Yeah. I don’t think anybody out there knows except Richard. And if he really doesn’t know, then whoever designed the logo. And again, I have no idea who that was. Yeah. Cause we were involved so early. I mean, I wrote. The copy from almost the first time I got involved there, we were taking the photographs, designing products, page layouts, and so forth.

In fact, the difficult thing for me, and it’s a funny thing, Richard originally wrote the copy first person. I came from a world where copy for selling products was problem solution based. His was I’m using it. Therefore, You should. When I started writing all the copy, I had to think like he thought, which not the way I think.

So I actually had a hat that had Richard on it and I would put it on and try to, okay, if I’m him, how would I think? You know, I traveled the world with him. We spent massive amount of time. I was at work 10, 11 hours a day. I mean, seven days a week sometimes. So I got to know him really well. So [00:23:00] I got the flow down.

The trap was that it kept me writing long into much Further past, I should have been spending my time on that, but I did a lot of that at night at home, but it was fun. I always wanted to keep that creative side going because that’s where I came from. And I still get to do that with cars. Yeah. I designed my own website with cars.

Yeah. All the photographs you see on my site. I shot all those. I write all the copy, the scripts for everything. I’m kind of a one man paper hanger here sometimes with one leg. So,

Crew Chief Brad: Well, the griot story is very fascinating to me, but I want to hear more about the racing. You know, you’ve mentioned, you mentioned the racing a few times.

Yeah. So let’s talk about your racing, dare I say, career and your performance driving history

Mark Greene: wasn’t a career. Well, I’ll tell you how it started. Uh, Richard Griot had some vintage race cars, but he wasn’t running them. He worked at Skip Barber way, way back before he started Griot. And one day he said, Hey, how’d you like to go racing?

And I go, well, yeah, but you know, it’s very expensive and I kind of work a lot. I don’t know when I’m going to have time. He goes, well, we’ll figure it out. So I [00:24:00] ended up getting a car that he actually had restored 1960 Lotus formula junior 18, but I’m going to back up from there because when you decide to go racing, it’s not a good idea to just buy a race car and go race because you may not like it, you may not like racing.

You may not like. Or be comfortable at speed. You may not like the race car you bought. You know, you hear these stories about a lot of guys get to the point in life where they can buy their high school dream car and they buy it and they get in it and they go, this thing sucks.

Crew Chief Eric: Never drive your heroes.

Mark Greene: There you go. Yeah, exactly. So I started in an E36 M3. Now I’ve had four M3s. I was always driving 911s and I had a lot of them. But I bought an M3 from a college student, a gal whose dad had bought her a car and then she hardly ever drove it and she had to go back to China, I think is where she was from.

So I ended up getting her car for really cheap. She had to unload it. I was at the right place at the right time and it was a really nice car and I went. These M3s are kind of cool. And at the time I was in part of many car clubs, member of many car clubs. One was BMW. And so I met [00:25:00] a guy and he said, why don’t you bring it to the track?

It was specifically Pacific Raceway. Say that five times, twice, 10 times fast. And so he said, why don’t you come up and try it? So I went up and I did a driving school where they took us all out for a day. We’re all novices. Taught us all these different skill sets and helped us learn if we wanted to be up speed.

Well, this is where it gets interesting. And they had all these instructors, one for each driver. At the end of the day, the instructor would take around the track in their car at speed because they’re much faster. And they said, this is what’s where you’re going to be going. When you do this more, you’ll get up to speed.

This guy had an M3 just like mine. I went, okay, cool. So we get in the car, we take off. And if you’ve ever been to Pacific Raceway, it’s a wonderful track elevation changes, kind of a Laguna Seca ish, but not as cool is smaller and tighter. And you’ve got to be really careful. There’s some very bad places to go off there.

So all day, they had told us through this one corner five, a five B that you had to be in this one location. So we went through it and he was in the lead of all the other, the master driver, master trainer, whatever they call him. [00:26:00] Chief instructor. There you go. And so, well, I’ll call him something else in a minute.

So we went through that corner and I went, that’s weird. This guy’s in the wrong location. He told us to be over there and he’s going in here. So we went around and we came out of that screeching and I’m like, whoa, this guy’s going fast. Went around again. He went through there and completely lost it. We spun the car 180 degrees.

And all I remember was coming around and seeing this train of cars coming. right at us, eyes as big as saucers. I grabbed the armrest. We didn’t get hit. We almost got hit by the guy behind us. Went off the track backwards, car flipped upside down and went down the hill upside down. Whoa. Yeah. And we stopped and the car’s running and I looked at him.

I said, does this part of the lesson? And he uttered some, uh, Uttered some words we can’t say here. And I said, you might want to turn the engine off. So he turns the engine off and the mirror had folded and shattered the window. And this is where I learned, if you ever go on a track and do a track day, even if it’s hot, keep your [00:27:00] visor down because when a window shatters, that glass goes everywhere.

And I had my visor up and it went in my face and ended up cutting my mouth and my lip a little bit, a glass in my mouth and stuff didn’t get hurt. Cause he had four point harness. So we were pretty good. pretty safe, but he messed his car up pretty good, crawled out of the car. So, uh, yeah, that was my first experience.

So I kind of came home and, you know, Jill, my wife, she said, so how was the day? And I said, Oh, good. Anybody crashed? None of the students.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Mark Greene: And she looked at me and like, and read me like a book. She goes, so what happened? And I told her, and so that was kind of the beginning, but I realized, okay, well this guy, for whatever reason, you made a mistake, pick one.

There’s a lot of reasons to crash on a racetrack. So I decided to buy some slicks and start taking my E36 to track. So I did racing here down in Oregon, not racing, but track days. High speed performance days where you could do passing and things. And after doing that for, I think about a year and a half, maybe two years, I bought another E36 M3 and I went, you know, I think it’s time to buy a car.

So ended up getting the Lotus and started [00:28:00] racing that. If you know a Lotus 18, it’s a small, tiny car. This was a junior. So it had a thousand CC motor drum brakes. I mean, It can’t go that fast, but it can bite you. I never felt safe in that car ever because you were so vulnerable. Colin Chapman was known for lightness, right?

He didn’t care about his drivers, I don’t think. So my shoulders were way above the sides of the car and never crashed that car. Went off a few times, but never crashed it. So yeah, we got to do that with Sovereign, Pier Pacific Raceway, interbracing that car at Sears Point, Thunder Hill, different places in California.

And then we ended up doing three day driving school, Skip Barber back at Road America and got to drive some cars back there. Richard has some real fast, cool race cars and ended up also getting, uh, actually it was Richard’s, but I got to drive it 67 Lola T290 sports racer. It was supposed to have a two liter, but it had a 1.

7, but still way faster giant slicks compared to my little Lotus, a whole nother experience. All of a sudden I was at the front of the pack versus. The back of the pack and the Lotus, they’d lumpy in with Formula Fords, which were 1600 CC cars. You couldn’t [00:29:00] keep up with them. So it was a little disappointing, but there were two other guys at Sovereign that had 18s.

John Shirley was one who has quite a car collection up here, including a GTO and is what I call garage mahal. He calls it spinner garage, but it’s the garage mahal. And there was another gentleman we’ve since lost him, but he had an 18 too. So yeah, the racing I did for 10 or 12 years, something like that.

Super fun, super expensive, but. It was a nice escape from work because when you’re racing, kind of like, and we may talk about motorcycles because I got into those a little bit. When you’re on a track, you can’t think of anything else. All of us know that when you drive to work in the morning, sometimes you get there and you don’t even remember what the drive was like because you’re thinking about work or whatever.

I can’t do that in a race car. So the focus factor there was really cool. I had some great instructors. Met a lot of cool people, got to do a lot of fun things. So yeah, if you have the means, I highly recommend it as far as Buehler said in the movie.

Crew Chief Brad: And then you just touched on motorcycles a little bit.

Tell us a little bit about your, your motorcycle, I guess, experiences.

Mark Greene: Well, I’ve always [00:30:00] loved motorcycles. When I was real little, my parents got us, uh, my sister and I each a Honda trail 70. Because we used to take a camper down to Mexico camp on the beach. And we’d ride those things up and down the beach.

And to this day, in fact, I saw one down at car week that was for sale. And I’m like, Oh, I’d love to buy one of those. And I think they’re like 5 grand now or 6 grand. And then I go, what the hell am I going to do with one of these things? Nothing great little track bikes. But I had a friend in junior high and high school, Bobby, who.

Raced motocross and he had a garage full of bikes, he and his brothers. So I’d go over there and he’d loan us bikes. We go, we could ride from our house out to Miramar neighbor layer station, because back then there wasn’t as much development San Diego, and you could ride, do canyons and get out there and ride all day long.

Or we take them out in his van and go riding. So bikes were always a big part of my life. But then when I grew up. They went away and life gets busy and then met my wife, we got married, had kids, and so I wasn’t into bikes, but then I kind of got back into bikes and I love Italian stuff, so I ended up getting a Ducati Monster, a [00:31:00] 750, and also an MV Agusta F4, which was probably one of the most stupid bikes I could have ever bought.

Just insane. I think they revved to 19, 000 RPM or something. Just wicked crazy bike. They were so beautiful and I wrote them for a little bit on the streets, but I realized after a couple of years, everybody’s out to kill you. There’s too many people not paying attention. Every time I went out was a close call and I tried to ride on roads that were out elsewhere.

And if it wasn’t a, somebody in a suburban trying to hit me, it was a deer jumping in front of me or a dog chasing me. Or every time I came back, I’d go, you know, I’ve got kids. I got to put through college and a wife and this is a little bit silly. So, uh, yeah, common sense took the better of me. So I sold my bike to a guy in my office who really wanted it.

And the MV ended up going to, uh, Butch Denison of Denison International. His wife, Nancy bought it for him as a gift. He has a collection of Italian bikes in his home and it ended up. living in his house. I think it’s still in his entry. Appropriate place. I should have kept it and put it in my office right here behind me.

I didn’t know I was going to be doing this back [00:32:00] then. So there you go. But I love bikes. Every time I see one, I, I like to have another one of those, but I don’t know, maybe that’s the best idea these days. I did take both bikes to the track once thinking maybe I’ll get out and do high speed. But the group I went with, they said it was a beginner’s group.

These guys were crazy hot shoes. After about an hour, I went, I’m in the wrong group of people because these guys are like, you know, knee drop sliding two corners. And I’m going to die out here. I’m going to wreck my bike. Uh, this was a bad idea. So, um, I came home. That takes time to ride a bike like that. A motocross, you know, fly around, fly in the dirt.

You’re fine. No big deal. But I loved motocross. You know, that’s another time I probably should have taken up instead. Was motocross pretty fun.

Crew Chief Eric: Your knees probably thank you for not doing it though.

Mark Greene: Yeah. At this point in my life, a lot of parts of me, thank me for not doing that. But you know, I had a couple of friends who got hurt really bad and actually a couple who died on bikes, not by their own fault, somebody hitting them.

And so you just kind of go, Oh, Uh, [00:33:00] yeah, I had this thing called mortality and like I said, I had children I needed to take care of and sent to college and a career and a job and a wife and family. And, uh, it seemed a little selfish, uh, kind of vintage racing was a lot selfish. I’ll put it that way. And that’s part of why I quit doing that.

Cause college was looming. I always say my sponsorship. Money changed to a couple of private colleges out of state. So I’m happy to do that though.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. And I totally agree with you. Like, I love the idea of bikes. I’ve had a couple of bikes in my past as well. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze. If you can get that similar feelings in a car,

Mark Greene: you’ve got a little baby now.

So you’ve got a, you’ve got a whole nother line of responsibility. You got to really think about because that little, little boy, right? He needs to have you around for a long time. So, uh, yeah, your priorities change, but you know, there’s other ways to get out there and have fun. Exactly.

Crew Chief Brad: And speaking of getting out there and having fun, are you still tracking and what’s your home track?

Mark Greene: No, I’m not. After I stopped racing, getting on your street car and attract just didn’t seem fun anymore. And that may sound a little silly, [00:34:00] but when you drive a purpose built race car on a track and you get in a street car, there’s so many differences. And I love my street cars, man, I enjoy driving them spirited, but you beat them up on a track.

And at that point I had started focusing more and more on work because I’d become the president of Griot’s. I had a lot more responsibility there. My children, like I said, college was coming and my wife had retired long ago to stay home and raise the kids. So I was the sole breadwinner, if you will. So I just thought, you know, I think I’m not going to do this anymore.

Every once in a while. Get out there and have a little fun if I got invited to something, but no, but my home track here would be the Pacific Raceway. There’s also one out in Shelton. They’re building a real track just north of me here. That’s going to be real racetrack. And, uh, I call Laguna Seca my home track because that’s where I got my racing license.

I love that track. And I got to race on it a few times. I’ve driven on it many times. That track to me is I feel at home when I’m there. And so, [00:35:00] yeah, I would say those two, but I’ve got to drive on a lot of different tracks, road America. I did a three day open world driving school. That track was awesome. I mean, so long and there’s so many technical aspects, but then now I can say that about Sears point.

Cause I raced there a bunch. So here’s point, that’s delicious too. So, yeah,

Crew Chief Brad: well, that brings us to our next pit stop question. Oh, okay. Any bucket list car and track combo. And I’m going to throw in bike as well. Are there, is there any bike car track combo on your bucket list? You’d want to drive or ride.

Mark Greene: Oh, sure. A nine 17 S bar. Um, now some may go, that’s kind of. That car is spa. Hmm. You know, not endurance car spa. I don’t know. You guess you could say spa endurance racing, but there’s other tracks, but the portion nine 17, because it’s a Porsche nine 11 heritage, I never been able to drive one. I’ve been able to sit in one, but that car to me would be pretty darn cool.

I’ve become friends with Bruce Kanepa, who’s credible driver, and he’s got one and is driven one. I’ve spent a fair amount [00:36:00] of time just talking to him about what that car’s like. Compared to the nine 11 and, you know, he’s an incredible driver and spa to me. I mean, so many great tracks, but spot to me is just one of those tracks that has some magic to it.

And it has that elevation change in the backside. And of course, coming down the front and up the Hill. Yeah. So I do that. I can’t say I would want to do any track on a bike at this point, maybe back when I was younger, but, uh, yeah, portion nine 17 is Bob would be. You throw me the keys. They haven’t have keys.

Maybe, uh, throw me the keys to that and say, take it around. I probably wouldn’t be very skilled at, at this point, but I certainly would have fun.

Crew Chief Eric: So that leads into a follow on pit stop question, which is, do you follow any motor sports disciplines? Do you watch any of the racing on TV or live?

Mark Greene: You know, I used to a lot.

This is an interesting question. I’m so busy with what I’m doing now. I just kind of try to steer as much away from television as I can, focus more on what I’m doing and [00:37:00] people. And I, I interview a lot of authors and books and things like that. So I don’t, you know, I say that to people, they go, what’s wrong with you?

Now I used to follow F1 religiously from when I was, before I was even married and all through that time period. Now here’s a funny thing. My daughter is the oldest of two. He’s 33. My son’s 28. And I try to get my daughter into cars. I took her to vintage races. I introduced her to Christie Edelbrock. I took her to car shows, took her to Monterey car week when it was only three days, when she was one carried on my back.

I mean, I tried so hard, never interested, just. Eh, yawn. Not interested, Dad. They came out with that series a couple years ago, where they did a documentary on Formula 1. She is now, and her husband, who has no interest in cars, they’re Formula 1 fans! So when I say, oh, Dad, did you see the race this weekend?

Could you believe he did that corner like that? I’m just, oh, I get, and I’m like, Who are you? That series I think has done more. And I’ve talked to Zach Brown. He’s been a guest on my show. I saw him down at car week [00:38:00] and talked to him about this very thing that has done more for formula one in the United States than anything ever.

And if you think about it, people love drama reality shows, and that turned formula one into a personal reality show about the people, not the cars. And that’s why I think it’s exploded. And now they’re talking about doing that for NASCAR, motor GP. I mean, all these other elements, because now when people see the people behind it, they’re interested.

Otherwise it’s just a car going around a track. You also talk about going to races. My wife’s never been into cars at all, but we lived in Delmar, California when we were first married and they used to have the IMSA races that the. Delmar racetrack. It was basically in a big parking lot, but still we could hear him from our house.

And I talked her into going with me one time and she was just, I want to do that again. So I’ve always said to people, if you’ve never been to a race, my dad used to take me to drag races in Orange County when I was a little kid. And I was like, In fact, I met Evel Knievel at one of them, which was pretty cool.[00:39:00]

He jumped a bunch of school buses at the end of the drag races, but Don Garlitsch was there. He ended up being a guest on my show. So it’s kind of cool. I remember you, you signed a picture for me when I was like eight years old. Going to races is cool, but yeah, I’ve just, I’ve kind of. Excuse the pun, steered away from it of late.

I guess I’m just so busy doing other stuff that I just haven’t gotten back into it. I kind of watch it from the outside a little bit, and sometimes I’ll go back and watch a race. But I probably just blew my whole career and the weeds. Thanks to that question, guys. Cause at all, he’s not a car guy. Stop listening to cars.

Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Geez, for anybody that’s listening, that may not know. I believe the TV show he’s talking about is on Netflix called drive to survive. Yeah. And that is a show that we are desperately trying to get Eric to watch, but he is very adamant that he will never watch it. I think I’m going to, the next time I see him, Eric, you can mark my words.

We’re going to have to pull a clockwork orange on you. Sit you down, hold your eyes open and you’re going to, you’re going to watch it.

Crew Chief Eric: I got disenfranchised from the beginning because the [00:40:00] title alone drive to survive. I thought it was about world rally championship, which is my discipline of choice, and then when I realized it was about formula one, I was like, I’m done with this noise.

Mark Greene: You know, give it a chance. Give it at least three episodes. Okay. Just give it three and I think you’ll find it interesting and perhaps it will broaden your world a little bit like it did mine. Get you energized about that discipline.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m a Senna and Schumacher fan

Mark Greene: from

Crew Chief Eric: way back.

That’s where it stops though. That’s the thing after Schumacher retired, I was like done.

Mark Greene: It’s gotten to be a bit of a circus, but I think this is why I got into it. And that is I’m about people. Karjaz about people. It really isn’t. I should have called it people. Yeah. But. You know, who would listen to that?

Cars, yeah, if you’re a car person, makes sense. And cars are the catalysts that bring people together. Car Week is a great example. You know, I spent six days down there. The friend [00:41:00] I go with every year, poor Bill, he just rolls his eyes and walks away because I can’t walk five feet. feet without meeting somebody that’s been on my show or has listened or I get to talk to about their car.

And he just, in fact, I went to one of the shows with him and I said, Bill, I’m going to walk the show the way you walk the show. I can 20 minutes. We were done. I’m like, you didn’t even talk to one person. He’s like, well, I don’t talk to people. That’s not what I do. Yeah. Just give it a chance.

Crew Chief Eric: All right.

Mark Greene: All right.

Okay. I like the clockwork orange reference. That’s good.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, speaking of giving chances and one of Brad’s favorite questions, we did a whole episode around this called Regrets in the Desert Island. I want to talk about the one that got away specifically.

Mark Greene: Ouch.

Crew Chief Eric: Your Porsche 930. And what’s unique about this car is first of all, if you don’t put Mark Green and the orange crush together, it’s all over the internet and social media and everything.

I don’t know that I’ve seen another 930 in that color. So let’s talk about. Is that a factory color? Was that a factory acquisition? [00:42:00] What led you to that car? And then the question that everybody’s been asking you now, why did you get rid of it?

Mark Greene: I know. Okay. Let’s go back to the beginning. That car was ordered by a guy in Ohio named Mr.

Four tens who owned. 410s Porsche Audi back in the 80s. He saw a car that was a Porsche press car in 86, a turbo that Porsche brought out. It has since vanished unless someone out there knows where it is in that color. It was not a stock factory color. Porsche painted. It’s a three stage metallic pearl orange.

And so he called Porsche and he said, I want to order a car in that color. And they said, nah, we’re not going to do that. It’s too complicated. We not going to do that. And so he said, well, please. And he kept bugging them. They finally said, if you can find three customers who will buy cars in that color, turbos, we will do three cars.

He had a little trick he used to play with Porsche back in the day. If you ordered, or your customers were ordering a lot of special cars, you got better allocations. You got more [00:43:00] cars. So he would tell Porsche that people were ordering these cars, but they weren’t. And then he would get them in and sell them.

And that gave him better allocations. So in the case of this car, he invented three people to buy the car. They were people that worked for him. He sent them to Germany. So they were European delivery. And I don’t know this for a fact, but I do know for a fact that back then, if you bought a European delivery car, it was cheaper.

Even if you just gave the keys back and they shipped it home, it was less money for us buyer. And so he bought these three cars. Well, he sent his employees over. One of them was a woman and her husband, her husband was the finance manager, and she pretended to pick up her new turbo. And then she handed the keys back and said, I don’t want to drive it, ship it back.

He did that with all three cars, my car, there’s a sister car to my car, exactly the same, but not as many option. My car was highly option. And then he ordered a slant nose, which was an expensive. addition to the options. So the story goes that he was trying to save [00:44:00] money and he called, I think it was Lufthansa, and he said, I can’t want to fly these cars back.

I don’t want to put them on a ship. And so there was a ability to be on a waiting list. So they shipped the cars over to the Lufthansa shipping center and they sat there for a while. Along many weeks and he goes, why are my cars not here? Well, because all our loads are full and you said you wanted discount load.

Well, he finally had to give up and ship them all home. They all came home. He brought them to his house. He didn’t want people to know he had three in the same color. So he put the first one in his showroom. which was not my car. I think it was a slant nose and he sold that car. Well, here’s where things start to get really crazy and bear with me because the story is much longer than we have time for today, but I’ll narrow it down.

The buyer of the slant nose ended up being a guy named Russell Flurry. Russell Flurry started a company called Road Scholars, which is now owned by the Ingrams. He was a Porsche guy. He bought that car and had it while his wife, and he had other Porsches, his wife ended up getting cancer. And so he had to sell all of his cars so he could stay home with her.

When she was essentially [00:45:00] dying. We lost Russell last year. Great guy. I became friends with him. He was a guest on my show. Awesome man. Sadly COVID got him, but his car ended up going to Richard Sloan, a Sloan cars. Now Richard’s another guy we lost to cancer several years ago, but his son, Brett runs Sloan cars.

And so he had that car when he had it, it only had like 14, 000 miles on it. He or his son, Brett, I don’t know which ended up selling the car and it’s vanished. It’s in a collection somewhere in a garage. Somebody that’s not on social media. The second car, not mine, but the second car, the twin to mine was then sold next.

And that went to a family in Texas. It’s still with that same family. The gentleman who bought it died and left it to his daughter. His daughter still has it. His daughter’s husband contacted me when I sold my car to talk about it because there’s. thinking of selling it. My phone just started ringing off the hook, but they’re not sure, but they’re not really car people, but there’s a sentimental value there.

But my car was sold last. Now, the reason I share the [00:46:00] story is I have since met Mr. Fortenza’s son, Marcus, who works at Penske Porsche. He was in high school at the time. He reached out shortly after I got my car. And when I left Griot’s, I had it for about A year and a half of grios and I left grios. I had it for 13 years and I started using it on social media, calling it my orange crush because I had a crush on it.

And he reached out to me and he goes, where did you get that car? My dad ordered a car like that. And I used to sit in it in our garage at home because it sat in our garage for four or five months before he sold it. And he used to dream about. owning that car. And I said, yeah, this is one of your dad’s original ordered car.

So I’ve met all these people around this car. As the story goes, you asked me, why did I sell it? We all know what the car market has done lately. It’s gone crazy. And I don’t buy cars to hope to make money. I buy cars because I like in the eighties. I wanted, well, in the seventies, I wanted a turbo because I was a kid.

I couldn’t afford one. And then in the eighties, I wanted one. And I was the so called adult with a new house and a. wife and a baby. I [00:47:00] couldn’t afford one. So I always wanted one. So that car fit the mold. But when I saw that car on eBay, which is where I bought it from, from a broker in Florida, and I won’t get into the story of how it got down there, but it basically was a one owner car.

But if you look at the car facts, it shows. Some woman who owned it, i. e. the lady whose husband worked there. Then the original owner who was in Indiana, who had it most of the time. And then he sent it to a broker to sell it. The broker sold it on eBay. And that’s how I got it. The car shows all these ownerships, but really when I got it, it only had one owner.

There was all these convoluted stories behind it. And this onion that I kept peeling away every year, as I learned a little bit more, a little bit more, just became kind of a blossom of this story. Which added to the, the wonderful story that are all cars have, but it had become too precious. I’ll put it that way.

I like to drive cars. It had become very valuable. It was all original, never damaged. It was an [00:48:00] incredible shape, although it had 41, 000 miles on it. I just couldn’t drive it without freaking out. So I was afraid somebody was going to hit it. I would never leave a park somewhere. Somebody might steal it or back into it or maliciously scratch this car just because, you know, and so it just sat in the garage way too much.

And I finally, at the beginning of this year, told my wife, I said, I think I like the idea of owning the car more than I like owning it. And she never really liked the car anyway. So she goes way too flashy for you. Thanks, dear. We decided to sell it. I got smart. I found a guy who was the past guest on my show, Rafi Manasian.

He handled the whole deal for me. He sells cars for people. He’s a car designer on bring a trailer. I know Randy, he’s been a guest on my show twice. And so we did this whole thing. I had Randy on my show the day the car went live. And to this day, that car still holds the record. I’m bringing a trailer for an 87 turbo for achieving the highest price point.

Now here’s where it gets even more fun. The car lives an hour north of me with a collector and it sits in a garage that I’d like to live in. [00:49:00] This guy’s house is insane. It lives amongst a whole bunch of its brethren and sister and other brightly colored Porsches. This guy likes to drive his cars and his curator.

He worked for me at Griot’s when I picked my car up originally, his name’s Tim. So now he is taking care of Orange Crush and it’s kind of like, I feel like I’ve loaned it to a museum and I’ve got visitation rights. And, um, probably if I go up there, I could even give it a drive. So it’s a wonderful rounded story.

And honestly, I don’t miss it because it’s in its new place. We all know cars are going to their new caretakers and they always will. We’ll be long dead and the cars we’ve had hopefully still be around and people will be enjoying them. Maybe they’ll all be in museums if they outlaw gasoline, but they’ll still be around.

So that’s a long winded and there’s a lot more to it, but I tried to be as brief as I could, but it’s a very complex story, but that’s what cars are so cool about.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s why we say everyone has a story, right?

Mark Greene: They do. [00:50:00] Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So that begs the question, did you replace it with anything?

Mark Greene: Not yet. I will. I have an E46 M3 that I bought new.

It was my fourth M3. I bought new in 05. It’s just a wonderful car. And what I’ll be doing is selling that car, because it’s now worth probably what I paid for it. If you look at bring a trailer M3 prices and my car is pristine, highly option. It’s got the competition package option. It’s a really, really nice car.

Sunroof delete. I will sell that car when I get the next car and the next car will be a Porsche. It won’t be an old Porsche. It’ll be a newer Porsche that I will drive even when it’s raining, even when it might be snowing. I’ll put snow tires on it. I’ll enjoy it. I’ll park it and walk away. I’ll still look back, but I’ll walk away and not fret about it sitting in a curb somewhere.

Yeah, that’s what’s going to happen. So I’ve got a couple in mind. I know what you’re going to ask me, I think.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you? Will it be a petrol powered [00:51:00] Porsche or an electric Porsche?

Mark Greene: No, it won’t be electric. Nothing against electric cars, but no, it won’t be electric car. Now this could change because things change.

It’ll probably either be a 911 GTS or more likely because all my 911 diehard fanatics are steering me towards this car, a 718

Crew Chief Eric: Those are both solid choices.

Mark Greene: You know, I’m long done with the wing stuff. I’m not going to get a GT3. I’m not going to get a GT4. I want a car that’s comfortable, but fun. The challenge for me is color.

I want a crazy color. And I talked to Porsche about painting it orange crush orange. And they said, well, we can do anything for the right price. It’s a very complex problem. Very expensive. It’s way more than the 11, 000 they charge for paint to sample. I don’t think I like it that much when they started quoting me 25, 30 grand, if maybe.

And the process takes seven to nine months for them to even determine if they [00:52:00] can do that or not. Because the surfaces are all different now on cars and not just metal anymore. So that’s kind of where I’m leaning right now. I used to have lots of cars, bikes, and I’m trying to simplify my life. My focus is on cars yet.

And I’ve got a new grandson where a lot of focus is now. Hopefully we’ll have more grandchildren. I’m trying to simplify. I want a car I’ll get in and drive and enjoy the Porsche 930. I just wasn’t doing that. And it was just a shame. I know it sounds ridiculous to some people, but I’m very picky with my cars.

And yeah, I’ll be picky with a new one, but at least if something happens, it’s like, eh, okay, fix it, move on.

Crew Chief Eric: You’ve simplified and added lightness to your life. So yeah,

Mark Greene: yeah, yeah. I, I, I follow this guy on YouTube. I think his name is Joshua. Who talks about minimalism. We’ve always lived kind of a minimalistic life.

We have a contemporary home, but even minimal, minimalizing your life more. I’ve been a pack rat my whole life, and I’m trying really hard to change that, to lighten all those, what I call burdens, I’ll tell you, it’s freeing. And I’m trying to focus more [00:53:00] now on experiences instead of things, which Well, I don’t think I know it’s a lot healthier way to live a life.

My son has taught me that lesson. He’s very much an experienced guy versus a thing guy. I was always a thing guy and I was sacrificed experiences for things. And I realized now that was not the right thing to do.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, speaking of experiences, we got to jump back into your timeline a little bit. So reminding our listeners, you were the president of Griot’s garage for nearly 20 years.

Mark Greene: Well, let me correct that because I wasn’t president for 20 years, but for about the seven or eight years I was. But again, it was always a small company, so we wore lots and lots of different hats, but when I ended there, yeah, I was president. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So that said, I never realized how much competition there was in the world of car care and detailing and all that.

And there’s all sorts of names. Yeah, exactly. The craziness that goes on there. So I would suspect that after 20 years, like you’ve been talking about, it was time to downsize, it was time to purge. It was time to change your latitude to use your terms. Right. What [00:54:00] inspired you to do that? To create cars.

Yeah. How did that all come about? And where did the name come from?

Mark Greene: Great question. We had kind of a three part catastrophe in our family. For one thing, agree is I’ve been there a long time and I was starting to go, you know, been here a long time. Maybe there’s something different to do. Richard was changing his focus and things.

And it was just like, you know, maybe it’s time to do something, but I’ve always done this. I don’t know. It’s fun. What do I do? Well, my father was 80 at the time he fell and broke his neck. His C2 vertebrae. That is the doctor said the Christopher Reeve break. My dad was always very active, very physical. He did yoga.

He ate well for an 80 year old. He exercised every day. He was always working on his home and he fell off a deck that he was building, smashed his head and broke his neck. Luckily he wasn’t paralyzed, but he was in a bad way. Then my wife’s mother. got cancer. And so we had these double whammy going on. And then my wife ended up having what’s called a large cell tumor in her leg.

And so that required a major [00:55:00] surgery and required her to be in bed for quite a while, months. I just felt like I need to stay home and focus on her. and take care of her. At the same time, we had just gotten through putting my daughter through college. So she was off in a career. My son was in his first year of college.

I went, okay, time for me to sell back my shares of Creoles were and come home, take care of her and find something different to do. And my son came home from college and I said, look, Blake, I’m trying to figure out what I can do from home so I can care for your mom. And also I need to make some money because your tuition is really expensive.

You know, so he was on the East coast and private school. And he said, dad, you’ve been taking me to car shows my whole life. My son’s been to pebble beach car week, 18 times. I’ve been 32 times. I’ve taken him to car show. Now he was a car guy. So I got to do all that with him versus my daughter. And he said, dad, I always tease you.

You can’t walk by somebody without stopping and asking them about their car and their career. Cause I’m in a business, entrepreneurship, how do businesses work and asking questions of people, which is what I do all day long. He said, how [00:56:00] about a podcast? And I, this was about nine years ago. And I literally said, what’s that?

I was dad, get with the times. Now I was not a tech guy. I had people at Grills doing that for me. I was running the business. I was trying to focus on brand building. And Product development, all this different stuff. And then remember this nine years ago, things have changed a lot in nine years in tech and in the world.

So I said, okay, well, let me look into that. So I started investigating what a podcast was, studying it, calling people who do podcasts. If they would talk to me about it, ran into a guy named John Lee Dumas, who does a wonderful podcast, very successful entrepreneur on fire, joined his group, learned how to do it.

And three months later, Launched cars. Yeah. One year from the day I left griots May 28th, 2013. You asked about the name, try to find a domain name. That’s not taken with the word cars in it. I’m a creative guy. I’m a writer, a designer. I’d come up with hundreds of names. And every time I go to go daddy or wherever you go, blue dot or whatever, and it’s taken, it’s taken.

Well, one night my wife and I were watching TV [00:57:00] commercial was for hotels. com I think. And we were sitting there and I was pretty like, well, I got to. Come over the name. I’m designing this whole concept of what I’m doing. And they said hotels. com hotels. Yeah. And Jill looked at me and she said, Cars. Yeah. I said, what?

She goes, cars. Yeah. That’s your name. Yeah. And I went, yeah. And she goes, yeah. So I ran in and I looked and it was not taken. I couldn’t believe it. So I bought up, you know, every version of it. I could. And I’m like, okay, that’s the name. It just makes sense. And it flows. So I designed the logo because I’ve designed hundreds of logos.

Maybe obviously the six gated shift gate with the microphone is, and it’s kind of cliche, but it works. And that’s where the name came from. And so it took about three months for me to figure out how to do it, how to learn, how to record. I mean, you guys know all the technical side of this. This is not easy.

And I’ve had lots of people call me and say, I want to be a podcaster. Go great. In fact, I’ve even been paid to help people get their podcast up. I did one for a guy who wanted. [00:58:00] Yeah. He mimicked what I did, but for golf and I said, okay, if I don’t mind call it golf. Yeah. But once we got into it, they all say the same thing.

And you guys know this, this is a lot of work. I mean, there’s a lot of moving parts to this thing. You don’t just these so called YouTube stars. Put a YouTube out, you’re rich. That doesn’t exist. Podcasting, it really doesn’t exist. So I had to learn all these components while Jill was back in the bedroom convalescing, I’d be up all night learning how to code, build a website.

I’d never done that before. How to record, use Adobe audition, how to move tracks around, and then Put it all together with this deadline. I set for myself. Cause I’m all about deadlines and business. I’m very methodical, set up how I was going to do it, practice with a few friends of mine and Rick Cole, who did the first auctions at Monterey car week was my first guest.

Thanks to a lady named Cindy. She was handling his PR and she called me and said, Hey, Mark. I knew her from before. She goes, you’re doing this cars. Yeah. Thing, but. Like who’s going to be on your [00:59:00] show? And I said, well, I’m trying to find people. But every time I call somebody, they go, what’s a podcast? I mean, nobody knew what a podcast was.

She said, well, I have a client. Would you like Rick Cole? And I said, yeah, I know Rick. And so he was the first guest. I decided to do five shows a week because nobody in the automotive sector was doing that. I don’t think they still are. And everybody said I was crazy. Just like they did to John Lee Dumas, he did seven a week.

But I said, I want to just get into this and I need to start to monetize as fast as I can. And within about four months, I had a first sponsor and it kind of went from there. So that’s how it all happened. And now it’s just like you guys know, tenacity and bulldog in this. Don’t quit. Sometimes I get up and go, this is crazy, but don’t quit.

And I’ll tell you, I’ve only missed one show and that was my dad died. It was rather sudden. I learned a lesson to have what we call shows in the can, because back then I would maybe record a show on Monday that would go up on a Wednesday. And I was always kind of trying to catch up. Now I’m two to three weeks ahead of myself.

So [01:00:00] that taught me. So I was really upset. I needed to go down to San Diego and I. Said to Jill, I don’t have a show for tomorrow. And she goes, Mark, your dad just died. People will understand. Your sponsors will understand. Just do a rerun. They do it on TV all the time. They do it on a radio. So I reran Jonathan Ward of Icon because I thought it was a cool show at the time.

While I was down there, I was able to edit another show. And then, but that was the only time I’ve missed a show. Thanks dad, but not thanks because you died. I don’t mean that. Just thanks dad for making me realize there’s an alternative way. He was such an awesome father and he taught me my work ethic because he grew up on a farm.

And as my grandpa said, the cows and horses don’t go on vacation. Yeah. That’s where that all came from. Here we sit. I just did this morning, Oh, 161st show. Yeah. Crazy. It’s fine.

Crew Chief Brad: For people that aren’t aware of the cars yet podcast is one of the leading automotive podcasts out there I mean you’ve been on the air for what eight years.

You just said a little over eight years over 2, 100 episodes

Mark Greene: Yeah,

Crew Chief Brad: so [01:01:00] for those that are hearing about it for the first time, what is cars? Yeah all about what’s your thing?

Mark Greene: What’s my thing? Well, there’s a couple things since I come from this marketing background and I overdo everything I built a whole business plan for this Podcast.

But the first thing I had to figure out was the why. And if you ever listened to Simon Sinek, great series, Ted Talks, he does YouTubes. He talks about the importance of your why. This relates to everything. Why are you doing that? Now we went through this at Griot’s and we were trying to come up with what our slogan was, which became have fun in your garage and understanding why people buy from us.

There’s a whole nother backstory to that. But for me, I decided that was going to come down to three words, inspiring automotive enthusiast. I was going to interview inspiring automotive enthusiasts so that together we could inspire automotive enthusiasts to help them realize they can work in a field that they’re passionate about.

And that came from many of my friends who were very successful neurosurgeons, real estate brokers, bank owners, finance [01:02:00] guys, business owners, but they loved cars and they weren’t working in that field. And they would always say to me, Mark, you’re having so much fun. You’re working around cars all day. I was at Griot’s.

It was all about cars. I want to do that. But I live for the weekends or I live for retirement. Well, if anything, COVID taught us is you may not get the weekend. You may not get retirement because we’re all mortal. Things can happen to us. And I think that COVID, if it did anything good, did a few things good.

And it didn’t do them good. But it taught us valuable lessons that you don’t have as much time most of the time as you think you might have. And we all do this. We think, oh, I’ll start it next year. I’ll go do that thing next week. I’ll do it when I retire. I wanted to show people by interviewing people who figured out the secret sauce to life, that there are a whole lot of people.

And I remember my mom, when I started this thing, aren’t you going to run out of people? And I said, never, never run that. There’s so many people in the automotive industry. And the great thing now is for the last few years, I don’t have to chase people. They come to me now because I’ve got all these relationships with PR firms, [01:03:00] publishers, racetracks, concourse events, celebrities, and they bring people to me.

So that cuts down one big hassle and that is trying to find, there’s still a few people I reach out to, but most of the time, my weeks are filled with people that are. coming to me. So yeah, that was the whole goal in that discovering your why is the idea of in your business. What is your mantra? You know, the proverbial 32nd elevator ride, you get an elevator with somebody, you can tell them everything about what you do by the time the doors open.

A lot of people can’t do that. And I worked a long time on this podcast of how to do that. So I say, I’m a podcaster cars. Yeah. Is a five day a week podcast for an interview, inspiring automotive enthusiasts, people who have figured out a way. To wrap their passion for cars, trucks, and motorcycles into their lives, their careers, and their businesses.

And I’ve interviewed over 2, 100 people. The door is going to open in another 15 seconds. Cause I’ve got it all out. What I just gave you took a long time to get squeezed down to that, but that’s what I think everybody needs [01:04:00] to do. We did it at Griot’s. Our goal there was to sell products so people could have fun in their garage.

That’s why our mantra was have fun in your garage. That’s why we sell products. So if you can do that with your career, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it now with people, even people haven’t figured it out to show them what theirs is all about. That’s what the whole thing is all about. And the best thing is I get to talk to people from all over the world.

This morning, I was up at five o’clock talking to a guy in Thailand, who’s building electric motorcycles, high performance electric motorcycles. Then I was in London. Talking to a broker. And then I was in New York talking to a guy who’s an investment banker, who’s getting into investing in electric cars.

And then I was in Florida and now I’m talking, where are you guys by the way? We’re

Crew Chief Eric: in the DC area.

Mark Greene: And while I’m back on the East coast, so you know, you just travel all over, but that’s the other thing COVID did. It taught us that we didn’t have to go places. I’d love to get my private jet and fly around and do all this, but the motors are always broken.

Every time I call the airport, they go, Mark, you don’t have a private jet. Quit calling us. So there you go

Crew Chief Brad: on that. [01:05:00] Do you have any favorite moments from your 100 plus shows favorite guests perhaps? Or is there anybody on your Mount Rushmore that you haven’t had yet that you’re you’re striving to get?

Mark Greene: We’ll start with the easy one. Yeah. I I’d love to have Jalen on the show. I’ve walked up to him four times in the line of Pebble. Very nice man, handed him my card, trying to get to him. I don’t know him personally. I, I can talk to his secretary about once a month and hello, Mark. How are you? Uh, he doesn’t need me to do anything.

So maybe one day he’ll have mercy. I’ve tried mailing him stuff and stuff. Jay, if you’re listening, throw me a ball in here. You know, I would love to have you on the show. Chip Foose is another one I really would like to have. I’ve just. I’ve had him booked several times. He’s had to cancel and just haven’t been able to get him back.

I ran into him at Car Week. We were at a private event that Radford Motors put on at the racetrack Tuesday night. He was there. Talked to him again. He’s always super nice. Yeah, no problem, Mark. Some of these guys are so well insulated, trying to get their phone number or email is a [01:06:00] bit of a challenge.

Those are probably two guys I can think of. There’s so many more. I’ve had a few that I had lined up. They were all scheduled and we lost them. Dan Gurney was one of them. Another one was Sir Sterling Moss. And so those are people that I wish I had had, I had them all scheduled, talked to them. They said, yes, we were all booked and agents or whoever called and said, I’m not feeling very good today.

And eventually they passed. Denise McCluggage. I had her on the show about a month before she passed. I didn’t know she was so sick. She didn’t mention at the beginning before we recorded that she’d not been doing well. I didn’t know she was that ill and we lost her. So I’m grateful for the people that And it’s sad because I’ve lost 10 past guests this year alone,

Crew Chief Brad: 10.

Mark Greene: The good thing about that is I record, this is in perpetuity. And a good example would be Nicole McGuire, Barry McGuire, Car Care King. His daughter was on my show. We lost her a few years ago. And Barry, I remember he called me on her birthday last year and said, Mark, I want to thank you because we realized the only recording we have in Nicole is your show.

So we can go listen to her on her birthday and we relisten to the [01:07:00] show and we get to enjoy that. So thank you for doing that. I tell you favorites is a tough one. It’s like your favorite kid or your favorite car. I’ll answer this without getting myself in trouble because when you have 2150, 60 people, why did you mention me, Mark?

You know, I like guests that go into a different path than I ever thought they would go because I have a script that I work with my show that I send people in advance for a very specific reason. Cause most people are very nervous being interviewed. In fact, I don’t even call it an interview. I call it a conversation.

But they’re very nervous. And if they don’t know what you’re going to ask them, and you guys know this with your show, they kind of freak out. And a lot of people are more likely to say no, but the scripts can go many places. And I’ve had guests where the scripts have gone, where I can’t even believe I’ll mention one, Tim Medvitz.

He was a guy that built choppers for movie stars. He dated Cher for four years. He was going to marry her. This guy was a hell’s angel. He was a pretty wild, crazy party dude. Dude building choppers for the Hollywood stars. He was in a terrible motorcycle accident, almost [01:08:00] lost his leg. And during recovery, he became addicted to pain pills and alcohol.

He was very depressed because he couldn’t walk. He needed to have care. He felt like his manhood was gone. And he really went down a black hole. Now I was interviewing him to talk about his motorcycle bill. And all of a sudden we went down this other path. And I just let him go. And you know this, when you interview people, sometimes if you just let them go, they’ll take you places.

Now, this is something that I wish I’d known in high school when I was dating, ask some great questions and shut up, right? So he took me down this path. We went where he’s doing the heroes project and he ended up going to the top of Mount Everest, climbing Mount Everest. He didn’t make it the first time he got within 300 yards, you could see it.

And they made him come back because they said, if you go to the top, you’re not going to come back. You’re going to be dead. Because you’re out of oxygen, you’re worn out, you’ll never make it back. And so he came back two years later, he went back and he made it. He has since started helping veterans who’ve lost limbs go hiking.

And in one case, he helped a [01:09:00] guy climb Mount Everest who had no legs. The best part of this story is Tim figured out And this is where I’m going to share the secret to life, the real secret to being happy in life. And this is what I’ve learned after all these interviews is Tim learned that life was not the Tim show.

Life was about helping other people. And when you figure that out, you make your life so much better. And that’s what I’ve learned because those serious talks I’ve had with guests that have gone through really serious things, had a guest on the show whose father killed her mother. He was a violent man and she learned that if she went out and helped other women get out of those relationships, she could save them another woman whose husband died and she started a car show so they could detect prostate cancer in men before they died like her husband did all of these people.

that figured out what really makes them happy, figured out how to do something to help other people. And so I try really hard with the concept of Kharjah that by sharing stories, I’m helping people find a better path in life [01:10:00] so that they don’t go to a dreary job every day. They don’t wake up going another day.

I wish it was Saturday. I mean, I see people that go, it’s Friday. Yay. And I’m going Friday to the weekends here. I still have too much to do. I mean, I don’t care if it’s Friday. That’s the real big secret I’ve learned. And when I’ve been hired to go do keynote talks at Concord events and people’s businesses, that’s what I talk about.

And I get into more in depth about the specific stories. They’re much more convoluted than what I’ve done here, but probably the wrong word to use, but that’s the secret. And I will tell everybody listening here. If you haven’t figured out how to help somebody in some way, go figure out a way to do it.

Because you will discover what you probably never knew is how good that makes you feel. It’s like we go back to, I talked about instead of things, experiences. And if you look at one of the three top ways to be happy in life, it’s helping other people. And a lot of people never figure it out. We know selfish people in our worlds, right?

That they never figured that out. It’s always take, take, take. But the ones who [01:11:00] figured out how to help, whether it’s just tithing at church or going and helping in a soup kitchen or whatever way you do it, pick one, there’s so many ways to help people, that’s it. So that’s the real secret to our discussion today, how to be happy.

That is how to be happy.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, in addition to teaching people how to be happy, do you have any words of wisdom for young aspiring podcasters specifically that you’d like to share? Maybe some do’s and don’ts.

Mark Greene: That’d be a long winded answer, but what I will say is you need to be realistic about it. Number one, it’s like starting any company, you need to have a runway in front of you.

If you think you’re going to start a podcast and within the next month or two, you’re going to be making money, probably not going to happen. You need to save up some money, maybe do a side hustle. First, keep your main job. Hopefully you’re doing a job you really like, but do that on the side and start to build, because you guys know this, you got to build an audience.

And unless you have a lot of money to go out and advertise, I did this all bootstrap. I’ve never spent any money on advertising. [01:12:00] I figured out creative ways to co brand, promote a magazine, get an ad in a magazine. Promote a company, get them on my show. Promote a concourse, get guests on the show, get free passes to the concourse, meet people at the concourse, invite them to be on your show, meet potential sponsors, get to know people face to face, go to SEMA, all those things.

I would say you’ve got to build that runway first. Financial runway is what I’m talking about, the term runway. Have some money out there. Secondly, Study people who’ve done it successfully. Entrepreneur on fire, John Lee Dumas, that guy is a rock star. He makes a ton of money. And so I followed him. I joined his group and I basically tried to mimic what he’s doing.

Still have not reached his high level of success, but I just look to him as, okay, what did he do? And how can I relate that to what I’m doing? When I was in advertising, Tony Robbins, we all know who Tony Robbins is. I landed him as a client in our advertising company. This is way back when he was just starting.

He did his personal power cassette [01:13:00] tapes. I met him one morning when I was coming out of the ocean. I’ve been surfing and he was running down the beach. You don’t miss Tony Robbins. He’s a giant and ended up doing his marketing for him. We came up with this whole new look for this packaging and he goes, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I wanted to do this. I’m doing this stuff with Gunthy Ranker. This is what we do. And I said, well, that’s what everybody does. And he said, well, yeah, because it works. And I remember him saying, don’t reinvent the wheel. Look at what other people have done. Mimic them, but do it in your own style. That’s what Tony Robbins has built his entire career around that.

He just tells you that I read a hundred books. I picked the best things out of a hundred books and I did all those things and I repeated it and I shared the message. That’s all Tony did. And I say all he does, does a lot more, but that’s the simplified version. Now, if you ever get around Tony Robbins, Ooh, that guy’s an energy package.

Um, incredible person. And it’s done a lot for people. He’s learned if you listen to him. The secret to his life’s happiness is giving back. He’s feeding people, millions of people, because when he was young, they had no food. They didn’t have money. And [01:14:00] so he learned that I’m going to help people by feeding people.

And he has this whole program. So if you’re going to start anything, I think study the masters. Talk to as many people as you can. Maybe go work, offered to work for them for free. The first three months, I was a great as I worked for free. Cause I was doing my other job and show them that you have wherewithal.

They may be able to give you some insight and perspective and help steer you down the right path, but be realistic because this superficial world of social media, we see of all these successful people. I I’m a firm believer that if it looks fishy, if it smells fishy, it’s fishy. And most of this stuff is fishy, you know, it is.

I mean, cause now I know cause I’ve done it and how hard it is and it’s always hard. To this day, I’ll call people about being sponsors and they’ll go, what’s a podcast? Okay. Now I need to educate you on, but that’s part of learning your craft and learning how to do something for somebody. And again, when it comes to advertisers, you got to think about what do they need?

Not what you [01:15:00] need. What do they need? Can you do that for them? Realistically? Can you really do that for them? I learned that in advertising because that’s what we had to do all the time. When you work in advertising, you What are your needs? When you used to work in real estate clients, we need to rent this building to tenants so you learn about what tenants want, what do they want in an office space?

So you gotta be realistic, but follow experts, determine who the real experts are too, because there’s a lot of so called experts that really aren’t.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Mark, we have a little bit of a surprise for you before we close out the episode. Oh, good.

Mark Greene: Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: I know that you’re accustomed to being on the air all the time, but you’re usually listening to people recounting their stories rather than being the interviewee.

So we figured we’d put you in the hot seat and ask you some Karzya inspired pit stop questions. Okay. Why don’t we get under the hood? with a challenge.

Mark Greene: All right. Here we go. Oh, he looks really serious. If you were a car, if you were a car, what kind of car would you be? [01:16:00] If you were a car, what would you be?

And more importantly, why? Where did you come up with this question?

Crew Chief Eric: Imitation is a sincere form of flattery, Mark. Well, thank you.

Mark Greene: I appreciate it. That question was quite interesting. If you’ll indulge me. That was not my original question. That question came from Harold Kleeworth, who’s an artist. When I asked him the original question, he said, I don’t like that question.

Why don’t you ask it this way? And he gave me that question, which is a much better question. It’s more about getting into the mind of somebody versus just what’s your favorite car. And so I’ve said, okay, Harold, I’ll ask it that way. And he had a very unique answer. You can go back and listen to his podcast on the car show website.

I actually interviewed him twice, very talented guy. So if I were a car. Not what I want to be, but who I am. And this is going to probably, people are going to go, Eh, you’re chinstapped. But no, I’m a 911. And a 911 is because a 911 is very purpose built. It’s not flashy. I’m not really a flashy person. Like I said, my wife looked at my orange crush and [01:17:00] said, Why are you driving a bright orange car?

That’s not you at all. Always driven silver cars. And I’ve always been very conservative and safe and, you know, done things the right way. I was the kid that sat in the front of the class and raised my hand every time and try to be a good kid and not get in trouble. And so the 9 11 to me is a purpose built car that has lasted through time.

Think about it. 65 66. That car came out. It’s still around. You can only name two other cars that kind of done that, I think. And that would be the Mustang, which I think they’re about to kill off. And why they named that E thing a Mustang, I have no idea. And that must’ve been a boardroom nightmare. And the Corvette, which I think Corvettes really come a long way, baby.

The new Corvettes to me are Ferraris and like, wow, that’s pretty cool. So for me, it would have to be a 911 purpose built, not flashy, gets the job done very well when it has to. It can be some different things. It can be a great street car. It can be a great race car. It can be a great track car. It’s always [01:18:00] been pretty much the same.

And my friends tell me that to this day that have known me since I was a little boy. You’re the same guy. You’ve always been the same guy. I mean, I started a paper route. Who does a paper route for five years? I’m an idiot. I mean, I had a reason four in the morning delivering papers so I could go to Don Patrol surf before school.

So there was kind of a reason behind that. My point is the Porsche just, it gets in, it starts. Bruce Canapa has become a friend. I was at his shop one day and there was a Kona SIG in his paint booth. And I said, Oh, somebody already wrecked their Kona SIG. He goes, no, these guys buy these cars and they think they’re going to be great driving cars, but they’re one hour cars.

I mean, they’re marvelous cars, but they drive them for an hour and they go, I can’t use this for anything. Park it in my garage and it’s a trophy. I’ll take it to a cars and coffee. That’s about it. But he said, I always tell people, if you really want to drive a car, buy a nine 11. And if anybody knows it’s Bruce, cause that guy can drive.

He can race. He builds and restores probably some of the best cars on the planet. The guy has a meticulous eye for design [01:19:00] impeccable taste and nine 11s. Porsches are the cars for him. So I’m definitely a nine 11. I’ve got some German heritage in me. So there’s kind of a little bit of that. Germans are known for doing things away, getting it done, being very orderly and focused.

I’m that way. Everything I do is that way. Just ask my wife about the sock drawer, or she plays games in the pantry and twist the labels after I straighten them all. You know, I think there was a movie about it. Killer that did that, but I’m not that guy. Um, yeah, I think it was called the stranger within, or I don’t know.

Anyway. Yeah. I’m very spit spot. That’s just the way I have to be. Maybe there’s the term for that OCD. Is that what that is? A little bit. Yeah. I get a little upset when things aren’t in the right place and Porsche’s have everything in the right place and they always have, and they probably always will, at least I hope they always will.

Crew Chief Eric: So one of your other questions you ask your guests all the time, because as you said, you’re an avid reader. What about some great reading? Share a great book or two that you’ve read [01:20:00] and you believe others would learn from as well.

Mark Greene: Boy, there’s so many and I’ve interviewed probably if you look on my category, my resource tab on my website, authors and journalists are the best.

Biggest category by far of people I’ve interviewed. I guess tomorrow, the day we’re recording is tomorrow is an author of a great new book about the 51st breakthrough wins of NASCAR drivers. Cool book. But there’s a couple, one of my favorites, Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I read that book a long time ago.

I still go back to that book. The best part is number five, which I paraphrase first, listen to understand, then speak to be understood. If only everybody would do that. And I’m guilty of not doing it. I try to do it. If you first really listen to people, and that’s something that podcast, when you guys are great at it, really listening to someone and not be formulating the next question or an answer or a comment before they’re done speaking so that you really understand what they’re saying.

And then when you do speak, speak eloquently and speak to be [01:21:00] understood, that would be one. Uh, the E myth by Michael Gerber is another. Game changer for me in business. It was, he’s written several books about business and about structuring your business and so forth. That’s an excellent book. Uh, Jordan Peterson’s, I think he’s written one since, but the 12 rules of life, I think is the title might be wrong.

My son gave me that book and I really enjoyed that book. And I know he’s become a bit of a controversial person and I. I kind of understand why, but the other part of me goes, no, this guy’s just telling you how to be a better person. And especially specifically a better man, a better husband, a better boyfriend, a better business leader, whatever it might be.

I really love that book. And when I first read the first chapter about lobsters, I had to stop and reread it. I’m like, what is this guy talking about? I think it’s marvelous. And I really enjoy watching him and reading him and watching YouTubes. His whole philosophy and focus and so forth, I think is really spot on, especially for the time.

So that’s a more modern, I guess, more modern book, but there’s so many, I [01:22:00] always tell people go to my resources tab on my website. I’ve, I’ve got an Amazon affiliate made it really easy for you to click and buy books. They send me a little stuff. Diapans every month, which is kind of nice net for coffee.

Maybe I’ve amassed such a massive library because of all my guests. My wife said, have you read all these books? I’m well, no, I have to be honest. I haven’t, but someday I’m going to be too old and decrepit to cruise around maybe, and I’m going to sit and read and enjoy all these books. I think it’s really important.

And I think a lot of people don’t read anymore. They get all their information from these little headlines and these snippets. And I always encourage people pick something you like and sit down and really get into it. You know, you think of Napoleon Hills, think you grow rich. I mean, I think that title is terrible for that book because it messes up what the real message is in that book.

Here’s a little secret, another secret. Ah, another scoop for you guys. My wife learned this. You can get books for free. You don’t have to go through Audible, nothing against them, but you can get free audio books from your library. She gets [01:23:00] three, four books a week. If they don’t have it, they’ll get it for you.

And they’re free and they come to your tablet. They come to your phone. All you have to do is go in and get her a library card. You do it all online. It’s incredible. I tell people that and they go, what was the last time you went to a library? Never. Well, why not? Well, cause it was kind of weird and stinky old books.

Well, no, they’ve come out of the dark ages. And some of them, if you can get into like the Phoenix library, Oh, that’s the good one. There’s a couple around the country that are even better than others. So read books, listen to books. You can do it while you’re driving or walking or exercising, which we should probably all do more of.

So, There you go.

Crew Chief Brad: So we’re going to close out the surprise section here with the ultimate drive. And if anybody who’s listened to the show knows what my ultimate drive is, it’s riding with Eric 13 hours to Kentucky. Neither one of us saying a word. That is like the pinnacle of the ultimate. [01:24:00] Well, I’m not sure what that says about him.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s a miracle because I never shut up.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s either absolute silence or we’re listening to NPR. That was the ultimate drive. But for you, if I could wave a magic wand and arrange for you to go on the ultimate drive, who would you be with? What vehicle would you be in? Who would be driving and what would you talk about with this person?

Mark Greene: Okay. This is going to be a little bit of a challenge to get through. Um, be my dad and it would be in a turbo S a brand new one. And we just talk about life, you know, what I’ve done and what he did for me. Yeah, that’s who

Crew Chief Brad: it’s a good answer. Would the Turbo S be a drop top or a coupe?

Mark Greene: No, I, you know, we’re both follicly challenged.

It doesn’t work very well. I got that from my dad. You know, I lost him about five years ago too soon. And he’s the one that [01:25:00] initially we started the whole talk with him. instilling that passion for not only cars, but for doing things right, having integrity, honesty, hard work, all those things he instilled.

And that’s why I was a paper boy for five years in detailed cars all through high school and college. And even into my first job, I did it on weekends. So we could save up for a house. I mean, I think back how many years I’ve worked a lot of years, I mean, just constantly, but he taught me all those things.

I love Porsche. So it’d be a brand because that’s a car that You can speak in it’s quiet. I could say, look, look at what I, cause he never, you know, I lost him as I was just kind of starting to make this podcast thing work. And he was always a champion of that. I think he’d be pretty proud of where it’s gone.

Also, he’d be able to meet his first great grandson. So that’d be kind of cool. Maybe throw Gunnar in the back seat. He’s not quite talking yet, but he could blab a little bit and throw some food around. Yeah, that would be it for sure. And as far as the drive, it doesn’t matter. I mean, there’s so many great places to drive in this country.

And the cliches are always, you know, up and down the coast, but I’ve done that thing so many times, even [01:26:00] did it on a bike once. So bicycle. Yeah. It’d just be with him. Yeah. Just talking about life. And yeah, he kind of choked me up there a little bit. I have a guest on my show named John Nikas. I ran into him again.

Claim to fame is the, is the only guest. It’s gotten me to cry on air and he wrapped me around an axle. And every time he introduces me, he goes, Hey, I’m the only guest in cars. Yeah. They got Mark to cry. So you guys got a little close. Today. Oh close. Okay. All right.

Crew Chief Eric: Mark, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t cover this far?

Mark Greene: Well, you guys, thank you for doing this with me. It really an honor to be on someone else’s show and get a different perspective. It helps me learn some things. I learn every time I’m on another podcast, how to be better. At talking with people and you’ve taught me some great things. Of course, Eric’s been a guest in the show.

Got to get Brad on next. Most definitely. So the invitation remains open to you as far as shout outs. I just, you’ve not heard of cars. Yeah. I’m easy to find cars yet. com. I have a website. [01:27:00] All my shows are there. You can listen to them all there. You can find Carja on virtually every mobile podcast app. I think I’m on 85 of them now or something like that.

You can find them on YouTube, although you’re going to go to YouTube and go, nobody listens to this show, not on YouTube, but you guys know it’s free to load it there. So I load it there and I’ll encourage everybody go to my website, click on the free book button so you can sign up to get my weekly emails.

I promise they’re very fun and easy and fast. The blog that I do also, I’ll send you my free ebook, which is called filler up. Which is an ebook I designed from photos. I’ve taken a very cool gas filler caps and I’ve surrounded the design. I know it sounds silly, but they’re really cool. I’ve designed it in a way that it’s multiple pages and it’s surrounded by some of the great inspirational quotes from guests who’ve been on my show.

So you can go there and sign up for that. I encourage you to do that. And, uh, yeah, just listen. Also, if there are people listening out there that work. Or have careers or lives in the automotive sector. I’m always looking for inspiring automotive enthusiasts. So reach out to me. I’m easy to find mark at cars yet.

com and [01:28:00] we’ll get you on the show and expose your life and inspire others with your story.

Crew Chief Brad: You can enjoy over 2000 interviews on cars. Yeah. Hosted by Mark green. He aims to bring you something new to think about each day. Answering the tough question. How do I link my life and my work into my passion through the stories of others?

You can tune in to Cars Yeah! today on all your favorite podcatchers or music apps. Log on to www. carsyeah. com to learn more. Follow Mark and his guests at Cars Yeah! on all your social media platforms.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Mark, I cannot thank you enough for coming on and doing this boomerang crossover episode. So with us here on break fix, and I have to say, you know, you talk to inspiring people all day long, but you also have to realize that you’re one of these inspiring automotive enthusiasts in the community, folks like Brad and I have been looking up to you for years and what you’ve been doing.

And obviously we hope to imitate and if we get half as good, maybe that’s good enough, but truly seriously, what you’ve done for the greater [01:29:00] community over almost a decade now is just amazing. And we look forward to what comes in the future.

Mark Greene: Well, now you’re going to make me cry again. Well, thank you. That means the world to me, this world of podcasting.

You guys know, this can be lonely because you produce these shows. And typically even the best shows you listen to, how many have you ever reached out and said, great job? Most people just don’t. I mean, we just don’t do that. You can go to Apple podcast and click on the five stars and do that. And that’s kind of nice and fun, but most people you don’t get feedback from, but I really appreciate that because.

Every once in a while, I will, I’ll mention Ramsey Potts. He’s a guy who was listening to my show, hated his job. And one morning his wife said, why don’t you just do what Mark says, go work in the car industry, Ramsey. And that’s what he did. And he has built in a burgeoning career. Now he works for Broad Arrow Group.

He worked for RM. He came up to me on the lawn at Pebble again this year, gave me a big hug. Thank you, Mark. You changed my life. And you realize you can do that. And we talked about that, helping other people. [01:30:00] That’s what makes it all worth it. So your words are awesome. Make me feel really great. And I really, really appreciate it.

And mostly I tell everybody this, I appreciate your time. You gave me time today. That’s the other thing I’ve learned. Time is our most valuable asset. Don’t waste it. Do something you love every moment of every day. And you know what? It’s possible. It’s not a cliche. You can do that. You get to choose what you do from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, choose wisely.

Crew Chief Eric: With those words. Thank you again, Mark.

Mark Greene: Thank you guys. This has been awesome. Really appreciate it.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. Listeners. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our Patreon for a follow on pit stop, mini sowed. So check that out on www. patreon. com forward slash GT motorsports and get access to all sorts of behind the scenes content from this episode and more.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve [01:31:00] heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www.

gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, You can call or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email gtmotorsports. org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization.

And our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag. For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of Fig Newtons, Gummy Bears, and Monster.

[01:32:00] Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com. patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports and remember without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

Check out Part.1 of this Crossover!

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

but wait, there’s a Part 3… with Brad! 

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

And then Don & Eric return to Cars Yeah!

Bonus content available as a #PITSTOP mini-sode.

Consider becoming a GTM Patreon Supporter and get behind the scenes content and schwag! 

You can enjoy over 2,000 interviews on CarsYeah hosted by Mark Greene, he aims to bring you something new to think about each day. Answering the tough question “how do i link my life and my work, into my passion” through the stories of others.  You can tune into CarsYeah today on all your favorite podcatchers or music apps, or logon to www.carsyeah.com to learn more, or follow Mark and his guests @carsyeah on all your social media platforms.