Late Model Mafia

Mike Gallagher & Koby Timms - Owners, Operators and Team Mates! for Late Model Mafia

Late model racing is at the epicenter of American auto racing. Whether on dirt or asphalt, late model drivers, crew, and fans are family, and it’s this essence of family that makes the world of late model racing one of the greatest of all time. Late Model Mafia is a gathering place for all late model enthusiasts to interact, learn, and simply share stories and good times with one another.

Contact: Mike Gallagher & Koby Timms at latemodelmafia@gmail.com | N/A | Visit Online!

       

• Let’s first start off defining and describing to our audience “what exactly is a late model?” – are those specifically GM products, or does the label apply to all domestic brands, or is it a period in time?
• The Late Model Mafia origin story – how did all this get started?
• Taking a “STOCK CAR” (won’t call them NASCAR) and converting it to Road Racing (TA2) what is that process like? What needed to be changed/upgraded/replaced? How different is the setup from oval to road?
• More about the LMM community, what would a first timer expect to find when they visit latemodelmafia.com? How does one “join the club” so to speak? Are there fees? What services does LMM provide?
• We noticed that you have something called “the pit lane” on the website, and we noted a previous guest on that list of racers: Annika Carter. Tell us more about the pitlane; what is that all about?
• How is LMM changing? – evolution to “Motorsports Mafia” what does that mean for the future of LMM?

and much, much more!

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motor sports related.

Late model racing is at the epicenter of American motorsports, whether on dirt or asphalt late model drivers. Their crew and their fans are family, and it’s the essence of the family that makes the world of late model racing one of the greatest of all time. Late Model Mafia and their founders, Mike Gallagher and Kobe Tims join us tonight to share their experiences and help you understand the gathering place they’ve created for all the late model enthusiasts to interact, learn, and simply share their stories and good times with one another.

That’s right folks. And joining me tonight is the one, the only mountain man band to talk about late models with the boys from Late Model Mafia. So let’s first start off by defining and describing to our audience what exactly is a late model. Are those specifically GM products or does that label apply to all domestic brands?

Or is it a period of time? What the [00:01:00] heck is it? Late models, whether they’re on dirt or they’re on asphalt, whether it’s oval or row course racing, they’re, they’re really in one of kind. They are purpose-built from the chassis up. From nose to the tail. Everything’s a tube frame. There’s nothing really that even resembles what a normal streetcar would look like.

And Kobe, if I’m wrong, they’re one step away from Macka car or a NASCAR or anything that you would see on tv. Nothing’s production. It’s all custom-built, handmade chassis, they call ’em stock cars, but there’s so far from stock, it’s, it’s the best way to put it. There’s nothing stock about it. Does it go back to a certain piece starting with the muscle cars forward, or is it just the way they’re built?

Yeah, it really doesn’t, it’s all about chassis, right? So like on my car, I have a Townsend chassis and Kobe’s car has a ham key chassis, and they’re purpose built from these two companies. And our cars were designed to run asphalt oval. We took them and turn ’em in the road. Course cars, dirt cars that I’m, I’m a little less familiar with.

We have some people, you know, on the team that, that run dirt cars. Um, same thing. They have purpose-built chassis all the way up. The [00:02:00] bodies that you see on these cars, you know, just take nascar for example. If you know you’re looking at the cars, it looks like a Camaro, but there’s nothing Camaro about it.

My car is actually a body of, of a Monte Carlo. But it’s literally just sheet metal and fiberglass. Uh, it comes off in about 20 minutes. Door costs about 30 bucks. There are no doors actually. You just climb through the window like a, like a regular stock car and off you go. It depends on what series you run really.

I mean, you can talk about Dirt guys or run 6 0 2, 6 0 4 s or the super lates where they can pretty much run, run what you run kind of thing. For Kobe and I, we typically stay LS based motors, Chevy’s, which adds to the conundrum mode Kobe’s car, right? The 13, which is a Dodge Challenger body Hake chassis and an LS based motor.

So there you have it. There’s no telling what’s coming around the track until you actually get to the pits and get to see, you know, under the hood and see what the guy’s actually running. So it’s, it’s kind of wild. So you mentioned, uh, two chassis builders and your description of ’em. Are there other chassis builders out there or are those the same area?

There’s probably in the southeast along as far as like, you know, asphalt chassis and Carolinas is where they’re [00:03:00] really big in production. There’s probably 25 plus companies out there right now that’s building cars. As far as dirt tars, there’s tons. I mean, it’s, everybody’s got their own ideas.

Everybody’s got their own concept. And then there’s a lot of companies that’ll take a modern name brand chassis and they’ll find something they like about it and they’ll tweak it and kind of copy it and produce their own chassis. So there’s not like a one generic company everybody uses. I, if there’s 25 cars in the field, there may be 25 different chass.

But only three really engine types, right? You’re talking about the Ford V8 LS and the Mopar Hemi at that point, right? And most guys, you know, will run something LS based. They’re just super reliable, they’re dependable. You know, most guys that run late models, especially road courses and you know the regular late models on dirt and asphalt oal, they don’t have these million dollar budgets, right?

So they’re looking for the biggest bang for their bucks. So they’ll go with the CT 5 25 or a 6 0 2 crate, 6 0 4 crate, something along those lines. Plenty of horsepower for what we need. I mean, my car is actually getting a new CT 5 25 put in it right now. I think I weigh the new motor. It’ll be about [00:04:00] 2,600 pounds and I’m gonna have about 750 horsepower.

So weight, the power ratio’s gonna be nuts. Well, a great thing that I’ve mentioned on numerous articles I’ve written as well as podcasts. So I’m a GM guy, and with the GM engine itself, interchangeability is way better than your Ford or your Mopar engine because if you go from small block to big block, a lot of stuff can be interchangeable.

That’s a great aspect of GM Motors going in stuff. The cool thing about GM two is the 5 25 and the LS based stuff is, and me and Michael’s had this scenario countless times, you break something stupid, more than likely advance auto’s. Got it. We’ve been at Road Atlanta and we’ve had to make a dash for Advanced Auto for an alternator or just some stupid part that just broke starters.

Serpentine belts, power steering belts. It’s hilarious. When you get to the park store, they’re like, Uh, what make and model is it? Mytel always has to tell him some stupid shit. Yeah. I don’t even know what I tell ’em half the time. I’m like, yeah, it’s uh, not really sure. I’m just kind of winging this here.

But it’s a Chevy motor. [00:05:00] No, Chas, you’re not gonna find it. Your database, I promise. You know, it’s one of those things, it’s a late model and they go, huh? Yep. Got it. Yeah. Okay. What’s that park store? If you got like a 5 25 or something like that? A small block, basically tell ’em you got something for a 72 Chevrolet truck.

If it’s a LS baseball about a 99 Corvette, and usually you’ll find something that’ll work. So you could basically say that at the heart of late model. Is gm and that’s, that’s pretty cool. So it’s neat to see that. I mean, despite the sheet metal on the outside, but we all know that, right? You see the new Camaro, nascar and you’re like that.

That’s not a Camaro, right? It doesn’t share anything with, yeah. Gotten so generic. It’s ridiculous. Literally, they’re all now running. Everybody. Toyota, Ford, Chevrolet are all running the same chassis, just different metals. I may be wrong. I wanna say the chassis is designed by McLaren. I don’t know if it changed, but there was a rule for a while where they were using the exact same template for the outline.

Had to be the same for the aerodynamics to be the same. Yes. My thing is the original stock car and NASCAR back in the day was, [00:06:00] yeah, pulled off a manufacturer’s lot and you took it to the track and it’s not like that. No, no. These are purpose built race cars now. There’s nothing that came off any assembly line.

These things were built from the ground up, basically right there in the shops. So just like ours. And that’s what we’re gonna explore here, right, is there’s more than meets the eye because these things are way more complicated than people realize, and they’re a lot of fun, to your point. I mean, looking at the weight alone, people go, that thing weighs 2,600 pounds.

No way. So we’ll get into all that. Kobe hit on something kind of interesting before he said about the asphalt chassis is all being built in the Carolinas, are they coming outta Mooresville just like a lot of the trucks and the NASCARs and things are as well, or they’ve built somewhere else? There’s a lot up at NASCAR country.

Carolina’s kinda the epicenter of stock car racing. Carolina’s also come home with a lot of the indie teams, also some of the indie teams that moved to operations up there. So I’ve got buddies that live up around, you know, Charlotte area, Carolina, and that’s, you either work in NASCAR or you know, somebody that works in the racing industry or something.

That’s just, that’s what they do up there. Before we get into the more intricate parts of how these [00:07:00] late models work, let’s take a step back and talk about the origins of Late Model Mafia, where that came from, how you guys met, and everything that goes along with that particular origin story. So who wants to take their first shot?

I’ll take the crack at it. Since I called, I called Kobe first. I started road racing about three years ago. I had 40 and I was having a midlife crisis, and I have a C7 Corvette in my daily street car. And my wife’s looking at me like, don’t even think about it. You are not taking that thing to the track.

And I was like, all right. So I ended up buying a three 50 Z for like three grand, beat the brakes off it, had a ball, and just fell in love with the. Yeah, we both did. Yeah, I’ll get through that. We broke that car’s back, you know, but we had so much fun. It was reliable, it was a good time. And then I started going to track Dayss, you know, working around, you know, HPE junkie and you know, working with him and just having fun.

And it progressed for me to where I decided to go ahead and build my first purpose-built race car. I found a a Thunder Roadster chassis. They were one of the classes within NASA that was kind of fizzling in, fizzling out kind of thing. And, and I found a chassis with a blown motor, basically a roller needed a lot [00:08:00] of work.

I was gonna do the upgrade, the high boost upgrade and all that. So I bought it for like three grand and I started to take decals off it. And I noticed that I saw these logos and they said K T R. I’m like, wow, that must have been the last owner. You know, I bought it intermediary from another guy. So I started hunting down Ktr and found Kobe Tim’s racing.

Next thing you know, I. Somehow got his phone number and I’m like, Hey, you don’t know me, but I think I have your race car. Remember? Yes, I remember I, I get this call. I can beat on him now. He’s like my best friend now, so I can, I kind of beat on him a little bit. I get this call from this Jersey boy asking me questions about a race car and I was like, but he told me he had my old car and you know, was asking questions about it.

I kind of helped point him in the right direction as far as, you know, where he needed to go as far as, you know, getting that car repaired and back on track and then, God, I don’t remember where did it go from there? Honestly, man, I called you a couple times and we just started talking more and more and the next thing you knew, man, we were talking about like, Hey, do you wanna go here?

You had already had your license with nasa. Yeah. So then you [00:09:00] started goading me to get my comp license. I ended up getting it in the Thunder Roadster and then I think it was at Barber Motorsports Park, like is where Late Model Mafia came to be. We, I, I brought, remember I brought the Z up and we just beat the shit outta that car for like, Right three days straight, we got black flag like 25 times for smoking and for just doing all kinds of ridiculous shit.

Man. It was bad. It was so fun There. We got video of it, like we were going by the flag station and they black flag us with our number oh 0 2 3 and they’re like, and Co was like, what the, it’s like a plume of smoke coming outta the back of the car. We had, I don’t even remember what was leaking. We had something leaking.

Dude, we had so much fun that weekend. We were sitting around after the Saturday track day and we were just drinking beer and having a good time. You know, Britney Kobe’s fiance and my wife Debbie, we were just sitting around laughing and goofing and we’re like, man, we need to, you know, and Kobe had been egging me on about buying a late model.

He was like, get rid of that thunder roast start. It’s slow, it’s boring. Trust me, once you get into a late model, you’ll never come back. And I ended up buying one. Turns out I was hooked. And [00:10:00] right there that day we created Late Model Mafia. We started thinking about names and it was gonna be went Stock Car Mafia.

Then we changed the Late Model Mafia. Yeah, the logo came about within a week and the next thing you knew we were LL CD and we were up and running. Without getting political. That was during 2020. Oh, the rebel flag and nascar. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We intentionally used the tagline, make racing great again. I saw we did on the website and the hats.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Well we had a hat, it was like a throwback hat that actually was Red Hat like Donald wore and it said, make racing great again. And there was a 45 on the side for my late model number, which, you know, just happens to be his presidency number. So that was kind of funny too. So, but we’ve always tried to be really patriotic with everything.

Yeah. As pro-America. Cuz we can, cuz Mike is a vet. I’ve always been involved in it. And I grew up in a house where, You either rode a Harley Davidson or you didn’t bring, you didn’t bring it to the house. So we’d go to the international motorcycle shows and stuff, and I’d see the Buell bikes and they were American Bill Street bikes.

My dad always would tell me, if you’re gonna [00:11:00] have one of those damn crotch rockets, it’s gonna have to be a bu to continue on our patriotic theme of, of, of business. Those have our bloods in my, I was military Coast Guard for five years. I was a police officer for 10 years. Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s red, white, and blue.

You know what I mean? It’s, it’s kind of, we started out with, you know, American racing and then did the whole make race great again thing and just kind of segued it back, you know, and just keeping the red, white, and blue themes going. Nothing’s more American in my eyes than a late model stock car. I mean, they’re just, it’s America, you know?

It’s America’s race car. In my book, my dad growing up, it had to be a V8 or a V twin. That’s the way I’ve always looked at it. Yeah. It’s American as hell, man. I mean, gets no more American man. Big high horsepower cars and just big boxes, you know what I mean? Ripping around track. So, you know, honestly, we started it as like, kind of like a joke.

Hey, you know, like we’re late Model Mafia now. We were teammates. We knew that we were gonna run together in nasa. You know, we had a bunch of other teams out there like big dog racing and team Tracy Motorsports and Annika’s Racing, and all these people that had pit crews, you know, were somewhat of a pit crew and teams.

They had multiple [00:12:00] cars on track at the same time, and we’re better than a team up with another late model. We get side by side on a road course, we’re 15 feet wide. Good luck passing this. You know what I mean? So, Yeah, we ended up, it just started out as a joke, you know, and, and we were really just laughing and clowning and kind of playing the whole NASCAR BS that was going on and, and next thing you know, we’re doing business and we’re in business.

My background, I got into road racing in 2018, well actually about 16 I guess. We bought an old retired Kyle Bus Cup car and we were taking it running track days with it. And I think about every track day group that we went to had asked us not to come back cause it was just ridiculous. Turns out it, it had some issues.

We sold it off. I got a Thunder Roadster. I ran it for probably three quarters of a season and the guy that’s over the Thunder Roadster program told me, he’s like, the motor you’re running is the old Yamaha. It’s kind of previous make of engine they used. He said, you need to get the Hausa. I was on the line of deciding whether or not I wanted to invest in the HAA because to upgrade one of these cars from y’all, [00:13:00] model Haa was like 15 grand, 18.

And I was like, ask me how? Ask me how I know. I was like, Jesus, you could go buy a freaking brand new busa for that. I mean, why in the hell this money I got on Facebook marketplace and actually found the late model that I, I have. It was a guy actually down in Savannah, down around Michael’s area that had it.

So we ended up Wheeling and Dylan and I traded him a roller Thunder Roadster for a late model turnkey, which I still don’t know why he did it, but hey, that’s on him. The car got started and Michael ends up finding out who Ktr is and welcome to the shit show. Yep. So as an organization, as a business, what are you guys selling?

What are your services? What are you providing? So the biggest thing that we just started, and it’s actually really starting to gain traction, is on our website. If you go to late model mafia.com and go to to the page Pit lane, we’re actually doing marketing for race teams now for Young Up and coming race teams and where they get their own website under Late Model Mafia.

They have their own webpage, their schedule’s out, they have merchandise that’s [00:14:00] available to people that follow them, their fans, you know, video of them, if they have YouTube accounts and all that sort of stuff. We can kind of custom tailor whatever their outfit is, you know, according to their race team the size of the scope.

I think we’ve got seven or eight teams now and it’s only been up for a couple months ago. Oh my God. Yeah. It’s a very nominal fee, you know, on their side and depending on what contract is signed with Late Model Mafia depends, is kind of dependent on profit proceeds that go back to the team. So basically, you know, if they pay the upfront cost for the website development, marketing and all that kind of stuff, any sale they make on Late Model Mafia of all their merchandise go straight to them.

So the profits all go back to the team and eventually help fund their team. For the teams that you help, are most of those the road course guys or do you guys have dirt truck guys as well? Uh, yeah, so right now, and I, I can kind of break ’em down real quick. We’ve got, um, Kobe and I are up there, obviously Team Tracy Motorsport.

She’s uh, uh, running nasa. She’s a two-time TT champion and she just changed over to wheel to wheel and she is one badass driver. Kobe and I play hell keeping up with her. She’s an awesome driver. Annika Carter with Annika’s Racing, she’s [00:15:00] another great one. She typically runs Spec Miata. She also has a, uh, st card with nasa and she’s been on the show before.

So that was part of the crossover Yeah. As well. Yeah. I thought you guys knew them. Yeah. Rita Marie racing, she’s an up and comer. Um, she’s trying to work her way into the ACA series. God bless her. We hope she makes it. We know how tough that can be. She’s pretty new and she’s developing a car right now to hopefully get her there.

And then we’ve got some Oval Guys, number 22, Joshua Batch. He’s actually outta Savannah, Georgia. Runs a lot in Cordial and uh, up in Dylan, short track Oval with a pure stock. My stepson, Zachary Christian racing number 69, just made his debut up at Chris Motorsports Park. He went out for his first outing in his brand new legend that we just put him in.

So he’s having a hell of a time. And then we’ve got a champ team that’s being developed right now, which is F A F O Motorsports, cuz why not? I mean around and find out motorsports. It’s kind of very fitting. It’s more or less a bunch of late model drivers and that’s kind of their mantra is basically, if you don’t move, I’m just gonna run you over kind of thing.

So, so they all decide, let’s call it F A F O. So there we are, a couple others that are looking into it right now. And, and like I said, [00:16:00] it’s a great product. Um, I definitely urge anybody that’s looking to, you know, get merchandise out there and get their name out there a little more. It’s literally no must no fuss.

You tell Lake Model Mafia what you want. We build it, we put it out there for you guys, share the heck out of it. Make your sales, make your profits, help fund your addiction of racing, you know, or even trap piece, whatever you’re into. Most of the teams you’ve mentioned are all in the southeast right now.

Are you guys planning to expand to Northeast, even out west and everything? Yeah, we are absolutely. We’re fully of, capable to handle the entire country, so it’s, it’s one of those things that if somebody comes on the website and they, they’re interested, there is a place where they can shoot me their information and I’ll get in contact with ’em within hopefully 24 hours and, and see how it can help.

I like the fact that it’s not strictly locked into just late models. I mean, you got some spec Miata, some other stuff in there as well. So do you see yourselves also supporting the folks that are doing eSports? Because we know a lot of guys that are, you know, I iRacing became really, really popular a couple years ago.

Yeah. And there’s folks that are running virtual late models out there, and they got teams and they got swag and they need sponsorship. Is that another avenue to pursue as well? Absolutely. I [00:17:00] actually ran e r a last year and had a ball with it. It’s, it’s a lot of fun and honestly it’s great practice. You know, it’s one of those things where if I wrecked my car, I just hit reset and keep going on like my real car that probably cost me 40 grand to fix eye racing is, is blowing up.

We’ve got some big plans for that here in the near future. We’d love to come back on and, and tell you guys about more once we have a little more developed. Yeah, we’d be happy to take on I racers in. So anybody looking for sponsorship and marketing basically, right? Yeah. Anybody looking for sponsorship and marketing in the motor sports arena?

Drag racing, it doesn’t matter if it’s got mo a motor and four wheels or even two and you wanna go fast and you need some marketing, we’re here to help you. So how does one go about joining Late Model Mafia? Are there upfront fees? So it’s all contractual without getting too deep into it on here?

Basically it, it’s how much you buy in is how much you get back, right? So if you elect to do the, you know, to pay the full price up front, which is very nominal, it’s, it’s very small. Like I said, Kobe and I are here to make millions. This is part of our passion. This is what we love to do and if we can help other people, Great.

You know, it’s very small and it’s really just to help pay for the expenses of the website. Putting marketing ads out there. If they [00:18:00] pay in a hundred percent, they get a hundred percent of their profit back. They already have a, a small fan base, or even just family and friends that are buying stuff. Even if they purchase from their own website, they get their profit straight back.

That’s kind of a win-win. Uh, I’ve kind of factored it out the other day on the profit margins based, you know, around the merchandise sales. And we don’t just do t-shirts, we do hats, t-shirts, mugs, banners, flags, you name it, we can do it. Hoodies. Pants, shoes, I mean, whatever you can drink. You want socks, we can get ’em.

Yep. You want socks? We got bathing suits. I mean, whatever you want, you know, whatever your crowd’s into, we can make it happen. It doesn’t take much. If you were to, you know, to throw in the full top dollar amount and you have a, a pretty popular base already, you’ll make that money back in probably the first month or two.

Like I said, we’re doing this so that we can help people get their names out there, hopefully help advance their careers in motor sports and, and just help ’em do what they love. You know? Cause Kobe and I, we know the one thing about a late model, when you ask for the definition is the, the first part of the definition is goes fast, breaks a lot.

We know exactly how bad it sucks to blow a motor and be out [00:19:00] $15,000 to, to get this thing fixed, get it back on track to finish the season. It’s helped us. I mean, Kobe and I have both made sales just off our own website, you know, and it’s, it’s put money in our pockets and, you know, it’s cool to walk down the street or at a racetrack that you’re, you know, your hometown or whatever, and like there’s a guy, you know, walking down the street in your shirt and you’re like, yeah, that’s cool.

You know what I mean? And you don’t have to be a NASCAR driver, you know, to get that kind of exposure. What I really like about this program is this is my 20th year racing. I started in 2002 in DIR karts. I wish that we would’ve had this program back then. It would’ve helped a lot in marketing and, and everything.

But I mean, we gotta figure, 20 years ago we didn’t know what social media was. And social media is everything now. It seems like when it comes to motor sports and Michael has helped me a lot as far as the marketing and, you know, social media stuff that’s, you know, if, if you don’t really know a lot about it, you can get yourself in trouble with it if you don’t know how to properly use it.

Social media’s funny, right? It’s one of those things where it’s a blessing and a curse because everyone’s on social media. So how do you get yourself to the top? Thankfully I have a, a BRIC of a wife who, who [00:20:00] knows how to maximize SEOs and do all that sort of thing. So the first thing you see when you type in Michael Gallagher, it’s gonna pop up MG Michael Gallagher racing.

It’s just a matter of how do you do that? How do you formulate that and get yourself to the top of that Google search? It’s invaluable. You know, some people would never even know that my team exists, but they happen to look up racing and somewhere in the southeast and boom, I one of the first to pop up.

So thus far, all of your, I guess, client base and people that have joined up, has it all been like word of mouth? You’ve, it’s all word mouth at this point. The seo, we we’re getting quite a bit of traffic on the website. I just don’t think that we have quite the marketing strategy that we need yet. We’re still developing it.

Quite frankly. It’s interesting because we really expected more late models, especially dirt late models, cuz those guys are in desperate need to sponsorship that they would’ve popped up. But we’re seeing more road cor cars outside of the late model scope. We’re seeing covets, we’re seeing Miatas, we’re seeing.

Legend oval cars. We’re seeing pure stocks. It’s went a lot further into motor sports than I thought it would. As quickly as it has, I thought we would pick up, you know, late models, you road racing and [00:21:00] stuff, but there’s a lot coming. For those folks that are looking to work with Late Model Mafia for their sponsorship and getting their brand out there and building their base and all that, are there any restrictions or obligations that they should be aware of?

Or is it pretty much open to anybody that’s currently racing right now? It’s open to anybody that’s currently racing right now. The more the merrier. We want as many people to, to get that exposure as they possibly can. You know, the only thing that we ask is, you know, we try to keep it as PG as possible.

A lot of people will come to me, Hey, can you make this shirt? And I’m like, Yeah, that’s great. But that’s not what our brand’s all about. We’re not trying to stir the pot. Yeah. It’s funny, you know, we joke around, make racing great again and all that, but we’re not going to that level. Keep it professional, have fun with it.

That’s the biggest part. You know what I mean? If you want a goofy design, we can certainly do that. Or you want something wild, it’ll catch somebody’s eyes. Sure. We really don’t want to dive too deep in the politics or we won’t, you know, don’t want to get into any kind of offensive behavior and it’s racing.

It’s to bring people together to have fun, not to. Yeah. You’re building a community. Absolutely. So, exactly. And I, I will say this too, that, [00:22:00] you know, out of the teams that we have so far, and there’s multiple disciplines that between team Tracy and I, you know, it’s, it’s funny, Kobe and I always, you know, we, we race against Tracy.

I mean, and she’s probably one of the biggest threats on the racetrack too. Us and she always called herself, she’s an honorary Mafia member because she said, I don’t, I don’t drive a late model, but I’m like, you’re in, don’t worry. You’re good. Everybody’s in. You know what I mean? Like, you’re part of the mafia, man.

It’s, that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s a, it’s a big group of people that you know, I mean, look, I’m 43 years old. I’m not making ’em to nascar. Let’s just get one thing straight. I might. Only cuz everybody else crashed, but it is what it is. But I’m not here to have fun. I’m, I’m gonna blow your mind.

Andy Pilgrim got his proceed with GM when he was 40 years old. So think about that. There’s you go, there’s still time, right? I got three years. I got three years on him, but I’ll give it a shot. But you know what I’m saying? It’s one of those things where it’s like we just want people to come on here, have fun.

Even if they don’t wanna really publicize themselves that much, it gives them an opportunity to build like t-shirts they can wear to the track while they’re racing. Or even just track day people. It doesn’t have, you don’t have to race. This could be, if you’re a track day [00:23:00] enthusiast and you’re all over, you know, the United States, or even if you just have one track that you call home, like Robing for me and Road Atlanta for Kobe.

It’s cool just to have your t-shirt and your number on your back. You know what I mean? Walking around and kind of like, you know, matching your car and kind of getting that swagger going. You know, Kobe will tell you, I mean, we, I mean, there it is. Boom. Mgr sitting on top of my hat. Kobe’s got ktr gear. Yeah.

People will identify you with your car and they’re like, oh shit, you’re the guy driving 45, right? Yeah. How’d that wreck feel? Not so good. You know what I mean? But why you laughing Kobe? I get it. It’s more of a lifestyle, right? It is. It’s a lifestyle. And that’s part of the racing culture that sometimes is forgotten.

People go to track days, they go maybe once or twice. They don’t find their niche and they go home and they never come back. Right. And they’re like, well, racing really wasn’t for me. Like you guys. I grew up in racing long time ago. And so, you know, I ran around the paddock with other kids. We all grew up together.

It was always a family environment, you know? There were rivalries, there was this, there was that. But at the end of the day, you’re all laughing, goofing off, having a good time for the love of racing, right? For the love of driving. So, exactly. Whether it’s a track day or a [00:24:00] full-blown race at NASA or S E C A or whatever, you know, whatever league you’re affiliated with, I mean, end of the day, no matter if we reckon into each other, as long as everybody gets up and walks away, man, we’re cracking beers and having a good time.

Absolutely. That’s what we’re here to do. I mean, I’ve had a rubber mallet beating dent outta Michael’s car, so I, it don’t matter. And you know, that’s probably a great segue for us to switch gears and talk about what it’s like to maintain, operate, and run one of these late models on an asphalt course.

Right. We did some previous dirt track and oval type of stuff on this show, but now we’re kind of bridging the gap and coming back to the track world with these cars. What’s it like taking a quote unquote stock car, we won’t call ’em NASCARs and converting ’em to racing for road racing like TA two cars.

What’s that process like? What’s involved? Well, it depends on how serious you want to be with it. Honestly. You’ll see a lot of guys come to track days and stuff that’ll find old cup car or something like that for sale up in Carolina, and they’ll throw a crate motor in it and bring it to the track and then they’re like, Well, this thing won’t turn right for shit.

I wonder why, I guess you’re talking [00:25:00] about as far as converting an asphalt over a car, you gotta get ahold of somebody that either knows what they’re doing or knows somebody that knows what they’re doing. You’ve gotta get that chassis straight up. Some of the problems that I’ve seen, people that you know, bring stock cars, road racing, you’ve gotta get it neutral.

You’ve gotta get it straight up. You gotta get chassis geometry right and everything when you go into turn one at road Atlanta at 120 plus miles an hour. You gotta turn right uphill, not left, it can bite you. And you mentioned geometry. That’s a huge thing. Is my familiar with late models is all dirt track up this way.

I don’t think I’ve yet to see a late model on asphalt up here. With the dirt track though, they purposely have their rears set at an angle for when they’re going into turns. So they look it out and slide around and the way it’s set up, it would be a nightmare on a road course. I can imagine there’s a lot of math and everything goes into that as well as just trying to figure out how it was set up previously for the other discipline.

You were talking about dirt racing. I, I actually come from dirt, so I’m familiar with dirt cars and you know that geometry and stuff and, and you’re right. You know, you, you kind of preloaded dirt [00:26:00] cars to where, you know, rear end we’ll all set in the corner. Our cars are, you gotta keep ’em straight up. And we have figured out, you know, depending on where you go, you might play with stagger like, Let’s say you go a robling road, there’s what more rights than there are lefts down there, seven rights and two lefts, right?

Yeah. You kind of, you know, make the car a little more to the right, give up a little bit on the left if you have to. Just, you know, getting the car set up pretty neutral. Is, is the main part. What are the suspension differences or even the brakes? Cuz like if you’re on an oval track, you don’t really use the brakes all that much.

So how do you gear up a car for now, let’s say a, a road Atlanta that is a very technical track where you have heavy breaking zones and loaded up corners and things like that. So what are components are you swapping out if you buy, let’s say something off a racing junk tomorrow and think you’re gonna go to the track?

We’re pretty much using standard light model brakes because we’re still 26, 2800 pound cars. Short tracks. They do pound on the brakes pretty hard. Probably the one of the biggest consumables in these cars is brake pads and using the [00:27:00] correct brake pads, the fluid house and fluid. Yes, we used Castro React, which I wanna say in the Covid crap, got up to like $120 a bottle or something up there.

But lemme tell you, I faded my brakes coming down, uh, to 10 a at road Atlanta last time about a hundred fifty, five hundred sixty miles an hour. Went to pump and brakes and downshifted and to do everything I could to stop that car. And that day I, I rolled out and got Castro React and never had that issue since.

Yeah. For those of us that are familiar, we call it SRF in our paddock, so yeah. Yep. Srf. Yep. I, I’ve seen people do that before. You know, buy all stock cars and stuff and they’ll just grab off the shelf brake through a D o t, throw in it, it a bull. You can forget it, but like you were saying, as far as going from oval to road course, probably one of the main things is getting air to the brakes.

You gotta keep the brakes. Cool. You gotta get the brake by set up. Right? Using good pads, using good fluid. Well, most off not using the brakes unless you have to. So what about the suspension itself? Like on an oval track? I would say yes, there’s suspension, but it’s pretty static in a certain way. Right.

You’re gonna set it up for the [00:28:00] banking and the degrees and all that. But on a road course where you have all sorts of undulation and modulation, especially in if you’re on a natural terrain track like Road Atlanta, right? You know, are you using multi reservoir, you know, six-way Olands and Cies, like Bill Steins, what are you using?

Cause we’re used to that on production based vehicles. What do you go to from a stock car to then turn it into a a road course card? We’re still using the same shocks that you typically use in the light models, just different spring rates and the way they’re set up and different geometry is a big point.

Yeah. You know, you’re talking about straightening the car up. Are you actually tweaking the two frame itself and straightening it up, or is it just a matter of getting all of the components basically square? It’s basically, you know, just as far as geometry and setup and everything, getting it straight up cuz.

I’m not gonna go blow a hundred thousand dollars on a new stock card for a track day, you know, NASA racing or something like that. If you had the money to go buy a new chassis and you could buy a front clip that was straight up, you would be ahead of the game. Majority of people don’t have [00:29:00] millions to blow the Hake car we’ve got.

We just straightened it up as much as we could. I got with Jimmy Garman, which is one of the biggest light model gurus in the southeast. He’s worked with the many of the guys that’s in the Cup Series field today. I took the car to him, you know, he helped me get it straightened up, get everything right.

Hey, if Hendrick wants to throw two cars at us, we’re here. Mafia do com. We’ll take two time attack cars, two track attack cars, 16. Those cars are undeni amazing. You know what they produce for the money? Any, and you know, they’re expensive, but for what you’re getting for that money is unbelievable. I’ve got a buddy that’s got one sitting in his shop right now.

I won’t name drop cuz I’m not supposed to. It is ridiculous. You know the way those track attack cars are built and it’s literally one of his son’s cars. That’s all I’m gonna say. So if I read between the lines on this, it sounds like with the setup you could easily go, let’s say you’re a Pocono, you could be running the tricky triangle and then be running the double infield and go back and forth on setup without really having to change any components.

So the [00:30:00] question is, how long does that take? Or is it all, hey, I’ve got it pre-prescribed for this track, move it to this position, lock it in and and go about your business. It’s all measurements, really fine tuning everything and just adjusting everything out. If you had the right people and the right stuff, couple hours, you could be good to go.

I both run Jericho, four speeds in our car. That’s another big difference between short track oval versus what we do. We obviously need a little more gear than what those guys have got. Most of these cars are converted over to Jericho. Four speeds, winners, quick change rears or tigers. You know, something along those lines where we can swap gears out quickly for whatever track we’re running.

Let’s talk about maybe some of the advantages of these cars on a road course and maybe some of the bigger drawbacks, right? They seem really appealing, like who doesn’t want to go drive, quote unquote, a stock car on a road course, but there’s gotta be pluses and minuses to it. So what have you guys learned over the years?

You know, some of the things you just put up with and tolerate and other things that are just freaking awesome and that’s why you love ’em. You have to learn to tolerate. Stuff’s gonna break. I don’t think we’ve ever had a [00:31:00] perfect weekend there. You’re gonna wrench on it. We, we don’t have a spec Miata or something like that.

There’s gonna come some point between two cars that we’re gonna have turn wrenches on something. It’s mostly preparation. If you’re willing to spend the money and keep good brake pads under the car and, you know, just keep the fluids changed out and everything, you, you really shouldn’t have a lot of trouble.

To Kobe’s point, the biggest thing is like, I had a three to three stroker in my car. It was a built motor and it lasted me, you know, it was new to me. Think they had one season on it. What? COS eight races and I beated the thing. It was a built motor. Tolerances are much closer. I had to run one 10 because you know, it was, everything was higher dollar, more of this, more of that.

So that motor finally went, I said, you know what, we’re not doing this again. I’m just gonna go to a CT 5 25 GM performance crate motor and I know it’s gonna be reliable. Keep the oil in it, make sure it’s good. You know what I mean? Check fluids, motor runs strong. Maybe two seasons or so. I gotta do a refresh and I’m good.

And Kobe’s, right? I mean, whether it’s a transmission or the brakes or something, something’s gonna go wrong on that cart. Just have parts be ready, you know? Or make sure there’s an advanced auto close by, cuz [00:32:00] like Kobe said earlier, Most of the parts we need are pretty generic. When you go to these Space Motors, I always try to keep, you know, especially of brake pads, hubs or something like that around.

But there’s, majority of the stuff can be purchased. Like I said, we can make a repair at the track outta your local parts store. Typically, unless you’re in the wall and you know, on the rollback, typically we can repair a track side. After running these things for a couple years, you know, we’ve got who is at uh, Magnus, you know, they help us with all of our transmission issues.

If we ever create a transmission, we send it off to them. They totally rebuild it. The cost will be as crazy as you want it to be, right? Yeah. If, if you want 850 horsepower and some wound out motor, then yeah, you’re gonna pay for it. If you want some NASCAR style, cup style motor, yo yeah, you’re gonna pay and you’re gonna rebuild it every two weekends or whatever it takes.

Honestly, reliability over a couple extra horsepower wins every day in my book. You know, I think Kobe and I have both learned that very valuable lesson coming from built motors over to something more reliable. They’re just tricky cars, you know? I mean, they’re very basic cars. I mean, it’s really just horsepower meets ground and go.

[00:33:00] But when you’re asking a car to do that for as long as we do at the speeds we do, shit’s gonna break. You know? So you just gotta be ready for it. You hinted on earlier speaking like a spec Miata. People know Spec Miata has regulations of what can and can’t be done to the car for late models. Is there anything like that or is it a free for all, how you wanna set your own car up?

And run it like that. Cause you mentioned going from a three to three. So, uh, in NASA competition we fall under super unlimited run what you brung and hope like hell, you brought enough. We’ve actually ran into that situation a few times. We may unload and be the freaking fastest thing there. But then again we had another buddy, Brian’s Tyler, that he is a freaking sprint card legend from the Midwest.

He showed up with a, uh, crown lightning, yeah, a lightning crown, sprint car and took it road racing. Holy shit. How’s that gonna work? But it did. It worked. Yeah, he was flying. And you know, the difference is there too, when you talk about road racing is we do a lot of interclass racing. So we’ll have super unlimited, super touring one through five, we’ll have Specky 46.

There’s a bunch Thunder Roasters, thunder Roadster [00:34:00] Extreme. You know, you’ve got a bunch of different styles of cars out there. You have radicals out there. I mean, there’s some open wheelers out there from time to time, you know, formula style cars. I think the biggest allure to me with late models is just the horsepower, the sound.

I mean, when you hit that throttle, your ass is gone. See you later. You know what I mean? It’s, we’re hell coming down a straightaway or a big sweeper, but it’s a mechanical grip car. So when we start getting into those tighter turns, we’ve really gotta focus and we’ve really gotta, you know, drive the car where these other guys running radicals or you know, these high down force cars, they can’t keep up within the straightaways, but they’re gonna equalize when it comes time for the tight turns.

Cause they’re just pointing shoot, right? They’re not worried about 800 horsepower blowing off the back end. That down force is holding to the track and they’re gone. We gotta make up our time where we can and they’re gonna make up the time where. They can and we’re hopefully we’re gonna get to the finish line ahead of ’em or they might beat us.

You know, it’s one of those songs right there. That’s a point as far as bringing stock cars or late models into road race, road racing, always kind of been looked at as the gentleman’s sport, I guess you would say. Not much beating and banging going [00:35:00] on there. We’ve knocked the hell out of each other. I’ve had my bumper on his bumper pushing him down the straightaway at robling at 160 mile an hour.

Guess you gotta trust your buddies, whatever. But that’s one of the cool things about these cars is, is you can beat and bang on ’em and you know, rough ’em up pretty good. And you’re not worried about wrecking your Corvette or your Ferrari or radical or whatever. Like you said earlier, a door panel’s, you know, anywhere from 30 to 50 bucks you could put a whole new front bumper on for what, a hundred maybe Kobe’s point.

You know, you listen to like these radical drivers or quarterback drivers, they get so antsy when we’re around them cuz they know we just don’t care. We’re in a race car. Neither do the Miata guys, so just No. Yeah, exactly right. They’re like, they’re like the, the spec Miata we’re like the thunder version of the spec.

Miatas and lightning for, for nasa, right? I mean, We just, it’s a giant piece of sheet metal and you can literally go to AR bodies or five star bodies and buy another door panel for 50 bucks. You know what I mean? So as far as us going into road racing that we kinda had to chill out, I guess you would say maybe, cuz we’re typical stock cars, we’re gonna beat and bang on each other.

And then we had a lot [00:36:00] of people in NASA that would get butt hurt. Like, oh my god, they leaned on me in the corner. Who cares? I mean, you gimme a rubber mallet and a four by four block, we’ll straighten the door back out. Didn’t Cole trickle say rubbing his race? That’s right. And now I know why he said it because he was driving a car similar to ours.

You know, when other people may not, may not agree with us, right? I mean, look, at the end of the day, like Kobe said that the front bumper on my car for both pieces is like 200 bucks. You know, and if I rip it off, so be it. I’ve got friends local here at uh, Southern Knights racing. He bends his own sheet metal.

I mean, he can build you a body for a dirt late model my late, whatever you want. He can have it to me like next day. That’s one very big advantage of a late model over a production car that’s out there. Road racing is if you make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just a piece of metal. You know, it’s not a $6,000 door on your Corvette or a, you know, a whole front bumper on a God knows what on a bmw.

You’re not as scared to maybe try that corner a little faster next time because you know you’re in a really safe cage and your body is pretty expendable. It’s mainly beneficial that a lot of the [00:37:00] panels are fairly flat on those cars as well compared to some of your production cars where it’s got these weird curves and bent to it.

Well thanks to Kobe. My whole right side is no longer flat. It’s more wavy. I leaned on you, leaned on me. Sounds like it’s waving in the wind. It kinda does this now as you look down the side of it, cuz Kobe decided to lean on me and turn one at Rob. Okay, hang on. It’s his wife’s fault. Why is it her fault?

Because when she put the new wrap on his car, she told me on the grill, she said, if you scratch his car I’ll kill you. I forgot about that. Yeah, thanks. And I came back in with a tie with a donut on the side of my car, right on my five. I was like, that’s great. So, Mike, I wanna ask you this question. You said it earlier, and I, I know, I know that even though your wife said you couldn’t take the Corvette on track, I’m sure you’ve turned a couple laps in it.

So when you compare your Corvette to your late model, what do you think about the differences? Right, because the Corvette’s fast, it’s light, it’s all very modern and computerized and all that. Yeah. But how do they differ and how do they compare? And [00:38:00] obviously you love your late model, but if you had to do it all over again, was walking away from the Corvette, still the right choice.

Yes, absolutely. It’s two totally different worlds. Best way to say it I think is a late model is just raw power that you have to control. There’s no assist. It’s not like you’re on I racing. You turn all the assists and you pray for the best and the end, the turn right? I mean, it’s you in the car. That’s it.

You don’t have trash control. You don’t have a b s, you got none of that crap. You mess up, it’s on you. With my Corvette, if I get a little wonky, the trash control kicks in. It kind of straightens me up a little bit, keeps me outta trouble a little more. I’ve learned how to drive a car so much better, even with my thunder roadster and now this late model than I think I ever could in a car.

With all those assists, it’s night and day difference. You’ll see us in there, you know, like on the cameras and we’re just sawing the wall, trying to keep that car straight and staying in the throttle, coming through a turn where my corvette’s more smooth, you know, I don’t have to worry about it. Cause I know that slip and that trash control’s gonna kick in if something goes wrong.

You know what I mean? It’s all right. I, I got this, I got this. The car will tell me when it’s enough for the late model’s gonna tell you when you’re backwards [00:39:00] staring the rest of the field going uhoh backwards. Woods are, yeah, backwards in the woods. And we’ve done, we’ve been there a couple times. So are there any tracks where you kind of regret having a late model and you wish you were in the Corvette instead?

Um, no. Honestly, to each their own right. It, it’s, What I love to drive the covet at each one of those tracks too, just for the experience. Absolutely. But I think I’d take my late model over the Corvette any day. It’s the sound, the horsepower. Like I can’t wait to get Daytona this year for hopefully, or you know, I get the car back, dude.

I cannot wait to put that late model up on those banks, on those bank terms. Like, you know, with the Corvette it’s just very street field with a late model stock car, you’re in a race car and there is no getting around it. I think Annika did a a thing on track Shaker and where she drove my car and I think one of the things she said is, you know, it’s like a race car.

She’s like, I’ve driven, I’ve driven a C7 Corvette on track and I’ve never been in a late model. And she said, the one thing about race car is they always feel like they kind of wanna kill you. Okay. It’s true because the car is just a beast. Just it wants to go. You hit that skinny pedal and it’s gone.

It’s up to you to maintain control of it and it’s [00:40:00] just, it’s a wild ride. You come outta turn nine at Robling or coming down outta turn seven at Road Atlanta and you just drop the hammer on that thing, man, and just go ripping through the gears. The next thing you know you’re doing 1 65, 1 70, 1 75, you feel like you’re doing four miles an hour.

Cause a car is so big, but you’re just blasting past people on the straightaway and you’re like, yeah, you’re slow. And then you realize you got a turn and here come all those damn high down force cars up your butt cuz you’re like, ah, you know, like trying to everything you can to make that turn and they’re just pointing and shooting.

You just gotta know where you can give up time and make it back up. Now I don’t, I don’t think I could ever say that I would take the Corvette over. I mean, I love the Corvette, don’t get me wrong. But yeah, the late model’s just a, a beast of its own. You mentioned earlier the fact that getting into the light model and if dent the door or something like that, it’s not as bad as you in the Corvette.

Do you think that inflated confidence helps with the want to be in the light model? Because like I, I did a lot of Moro when I was younger, so going from Motorcross, being on a bike to being inside a car, My confidence is way higher than it would be. Yeah, so a funny story, when I [00:41:00] was still just doing track days, I went out with, it was either just tracking or max speed track days here at Robling, I was still in my z.

It’s a cool car, it’s fun, but the, it was such a shitbox and it still is, you know, we’re totally redeveloping the car for Champ car, like the motor’s gotta come out, everything is getting redone. But I was out there and I had been out on the track probably for like six, eight months and I, I know Rebel like the back of my hand.

I mean, it’s 10 minutes from my house and I’m out there beating the C seven Corvette and these guys came in, two of these vets came in and I’m passing ’em left and right. And then they’re like, they came over to me like, dude, what do you have in that thing? I’m like, what do you mean? They’re like, you’re passing this, like in the turns everywhere.

And I’m like, dude, it’s stock. I popped the hood, dude, it’s a 200,000 mile VQ 35 B. You know what I mean? There’s nothing special, dude. The suspension, every time you turn it pop it crack. Like it was a $3,000 shit box. But I had so much fun because I didn’t care about it. If I wrecked it. Oh, well, I didn’t have $85,000 an insurance company to go to and say, I think I wrecked on 95.

You know what I mean? Like, cause I mean, that’s [00:42:00] a huge concern. And then if you, if you wanna play it safe with a super expensive car, you know, like Corvette or a Porsche, McLaren, you’ve gotta get track insurance, then I don’t even wanna know what that costs, you know, I’ve heard of some horror stories where these guys are spending thousands of dollars for a weekend and they only get like 40% of the value of the vehicle back.

I’m like, what’s that? I mean, dude just crash into the wall, who cares? So, I think you’re right. It, it does give you a kind of an inflated sense of what you can do because you’re not afraid to push it. Because guess what, it’s not my daily driver. If I do skirt the wall or I do, you know, clang it off of somebody, or I hit it in the tire walls, um, dude, I’m gonna take a pry bar and a welder or a torch and just bend at the Fri back unless something catastrophic happens.

Then I just take it back to, you know, over to Southern Knights racing and, and they straighten it out for me and go, all right, here you go. Here’s car back orette. I would probably cry. I’d just walk back to the pits crying. Like sobbing, you know what I mean? Because I just destroyed my baby. So it’s, it’s a whole different world, you know?

I think it gives you more confidence being in a stock car because, you know, all these late models and everything, they’re basically [00:43:00] built off the idea of NASCAR roll cages. And as far as their job direction, any race we go to, there’s not a safer race car at the event than what we’re in. Where’s pretty much bombproof in there?

I mean, I’ve seen a guy roll it over and turn one, he lost his brakes going to turn one at Robling. If you know Robling, that’s a super long straightaway followed by a right turn. And if you don’t make the right, you’re going into this, into the dirt wall, up over the trees. And that’s exactly what he did.

There wasn’t anything left but the cage and he walked away. And when you feel safe behind the wheel of something that’s got that much power, you’re more willing to try to push the envelope a little bit. Well, you don’t have to worry about what it’s gonna cost if you bang it up or if you tear a body panel up, or if you get in the wall, or if you go off track and tear a sp splitter off of it or something like that.

I guess I shouldn’t say this, but if you got a set and you don’t give a shit, you can haul ass in one of these cars as long as you got the cars set up right. Safety wise, which is something that we are very big fans of. Don’t buy the cheap stuff. Set the car up. Right. Good seat, good belts. You know you’ll be okay.

Wearing an Alpine Stars hat for a purpose. [00:44:00] Mike and Kobe, let me ask you this. For the folks that are looking to get into late models, is there an opportunity out there either with Late Model Mafia to come and try a car? Maybe somebody that’s in the group that’s got one, or where would you recommend somebody going to get one of these cars on the cheap?

If they’re trying to get in for the first time? Stop it right there. Do not go buy a good deal. No. No. If you see a car on racing jump that, oh, it’s turnkey. Ready to go for eight grand, 10 grand. No it’s not. No, it’s not. It’s, it’s a pile junk. This is probably gonna get you hurt or break your bank account.

Most times those cars are people’s cars that have raced for three to four years. They know the engine is spent and they’re just trying to get rid of it to get something new themselves, and it’s nothing against them. It’s just, that’s just the nature of the beast with most things on racing junk. You have to search for the good deals, you know, or buy the right car.

I mean, as far as somebody wanting to get seat time on one of these things, no, unfortunately, you, you, you kind of gotta make the commitment and the investment to get into the program. The, probably the best thing you can do is come hang out, you know, with us or whoever. I, [00:45:00] we’ve got a lot of friends in late model racing.

Get in with a good shop, a good house, something like that, that can point you in the right direction because you could give me $50,000 and tell me to go buy you a turnkey race car. And you’re not guaranteed to get anything good off racing junk or Facebook marketplace. You need to know somebody that knows somebody and get something good.

You know, the other option, if it’s somebody that’s just looking to experience what it’s like to be in a late model, you know, most of these NASCAR tracks have those experiences, right? The NASCAR experience, you’re not gonna really be able to like wide open the car, you know, and really let it, you know, send it in the term one.

But I mean, to get that experience and the sound and the horsepower, you know, and go through a class and get to see what these guys do. And I think people would really appreciate that cuz you know, got, you know, these guys in NASCAR and, and you know, the Xfinity cop at Xfinity and arca, I mean, look, they, they earn their money.

You know, I, I never thought it either when I was younger and before I ever drove a late model and I’ve quickly realized just how skilled those drivers are to be able to do what they do week in and week out. So for an individual looking to get into late model, [00:46:00] would you guys be open to them, like reaching out to you guys on late model off and be like, Hey, I found this deal.

Do you think it’s worthwhile? Is it something I should look into further or just walk away from it and don’t think about it a second time? Is that something you guys openly give advice to people for? Yeah, absolutely. That’s kinda the way I got into it. And as far as coming over to stock cars and road racing and stuff, I bought what I thought was a really cool, good deal.

But it turns out it was a bar that Kyle Busch backed into the wall at Daytona. They got straightened up, become a show car. And it was about as wonky that came. Yeah, and the funny part is there’s no Carfax for a late model, right? Like you can’t check it out. Like God only knows what’s my Townsend Chassis’s been through in the past 18 years.

I mean, God only knows it. It could be bad up three times, straightened and kept right on rolling. You don’t know what you don’t know. The biggest piece of advice I have, if you have a friend that’s local, that has been in the late models or in any sort of racing and you’re looking to buy a car, take them with you.

Don’t go it alone because they’re gonna see things that you’ll never think about. You’re looking at it, oh, the tires look good and the brakes look good. And you know the [00:47:00] body’s in decent shape, but they’re looking at the chassis. Is it straight As this is that? You know what I mean? Is the motor even in there straight?

I mean, some of these guys just drop a motor and they don’t line ’em up. Nothing I, it just, boom, see you And they send it, you know? Next thing you know, you’re putting a huge load on your transmission and next thing you know, you got it towards transmission or rear end. I’ve got a couple of really good friends up in the Atlanta area that are kind of doing that now.

They’re big fans of lake model racing as far as road racing and stuff, and they’re buying cars that are, you know, nice, respectable cars. And you can get in touch with a guy like this and kind of tell him, you know what the budget is what you wanna spend, and they’ll build you something legit and turnkey.

Ready to go to the track. It’s probably not as expensive as you would think. I’ve actually talked to some people that’s told me that they had more money in a spec Miata than we have in a stock car. Let’s say it a lot. But just realize, you know, you might be able to buy one, a decent one for between 15, 25, maybe 30 grand, but just know when that motor goes, you’re talking anywhere from eight to $15,000 to replace it.

You know you’re not gonna find a [00:48:00] cheap motor unless you just go to the junkyard and try and find something that’ll suffice their investment. For sure. And I think you alluded to it earlier, they’re not for the faint of heart either. So I would recommend from a coach’s perspective, learn on something else first, something with the right seat.

So you can at least get an idea of this, what it’s like being out on the track. Because I mean, outside of your guys’ mentorship and tutelage, it’s gonna be very difficult for somebody to jump into one of these turnkey race cars and A be safe B, B fast, and C, figure out where the hell they’re really going.

So it’s a progression, right? You don’t start with a late model. You probably don’t end with a late model, but it’s gonna be, to your guys’ point, the most fun you’re gonna have during your journey as a driver, if that’s on the resume that you’re building, but you just can’t start there, right? Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s interesting, I jumped into him way too early.

I went from a thunder roaster, 180 horsepower, you know, little tiny open wheel car. Open top car, and, and just went head first into a late model and drove it. Like I was driving a thunder roaster, [00:49:00] which was a huge mistake I got in my head. I spun a bunch, Kobe’s laughing at me on the radio. I’m cussing him out, you know what I mean?

Like, I got you, I’m coming. I couldn’t catch him cuz I just didn’t have that wherewithal in me yet to understand what it took to drive in a car. And it took me, you know, six, eight months to really start dialing it in and getting, people ask, oh, how do I get one of these? And what I do? I’m like, well, you know, have you driven a race car before?

Have you been on a track? Oh, I’ve been on the track, but you know, it’s in a, you know, I was in, you know, a BMW Z four. I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, not yet. Yeah. And there are guys out there, there are some of these chassis that are actually two seaters, you know, where they’ve converted ’em and they’ve put a second seat.

We know one or two locally here, you know, in the Georgia area that have those. And you know, and these guys are great. Like if, if you go to an open track day and you see one that’s got two seats, say, Hey man, can you take me for a ride? And 9.9 outta a 10 times. The guy that owns the late, I’m like, hell yeah man.

Jump in. It’s actually something we’ve discussed building as far as business wise. Before the Late Model Mafia was building a two-seater so we could go to track days or H P D E and take our friends for a ride. I just gotta figure out insurance. If Kobe’s driving [00:50:00] obvious is scaring the hell outta Debbie Gallagher.

I’ve always said that I wanted to get a two-seater and get her in it shotgun and and just make her stream like a little girl. Doesn’t Mike, I did that. A z

Well Mike, you hit to it earlier regarding the fact the late models don’t have any of the driver assist options on em. It is strictly a driver’s ability in the car and a lot of the people that do a lot of the H HPD events and have gotten so used to driver assist items. It’s a late model from what I’m taking.

Definitely not your fresh, you know, novice driver to hop in and go get some experience under your belt, work your way up to that and then get into it. Yeah. And if you decide that, yeah, you know what? Hell with it. I’m gonna jump into a late model right away. You need to start in D one and work your way up and just realize that’s only gonna go as fast as you let it.

Sorry. As you get that skinny pedals as fast as it’s gonna go, and just realize, know your limits, you know, and understand that it’s a whole different world. You gotta get those tires warmed up. You gotta make sure that the suspension’s right, if, [00:51:00] if you set up your suspension wrong for a certain track, you’re in serious trouble before you even roll out on the track, and you’re not gonna realize it till it’s too late.

You know, these guys have been doing this for a long time. I’m relatively new to it, so when we go to the track, I listen to Kobe, you know, and these other guys that, that he’s mentioning, and just try to absorb everything like a sponge so I can learn as much as possible. Could you violate mine out of the gate?

Absolutely. Should you just go out there and go full send like I did? Oh, hell no. That’s just a bad idea, you know? Yes. I highly recommend either a, uh, broad restrictor or a governor. Absolutely. But I will say this, you know, for the younger generation growing up, like my stepson Zach, he just ran his first race in oval, you know, and I was kind of like waffling as to what I should get him for his first car.

You know, I know that he’s gonna eventually end up in late models. He, he loves Kobe’s car and my car to death and, you know, he’s crude for us for years, since we’ve both been out there with Vasa and even run de. I was gonna buy him something like a Z and I said, you know what? I’m gonna buy him something that’s totally out there.

I’m gonna buy him a US Legends car and let him go run oval for a while. I don’t want him to learn on the assists. If he wants to make it [00:52:00] to late models, he needs to drive something that needs to be driven and not assisted to drive. So, you know, he’s been out there already, you know, he had his first race and, and he loved it.

He was out there. He was a slow poke for practice and warmups and qualifying. He started picking it up. But he’s starting to realize now that, you know, it’s not just holding the steering wheel and cruising around and you’re, you know, you’re really letting this thing have it in order to keep it going where you want it to go.

And I think that’s gonna be his biggest attribute when he moves up. Again, I think it helped me with the Thunder Roadster because there’s no system on the roaster. I mean, it’s balls of the wall the whole way that at least gave me some sort of a shot with a late model when I first stepped in. Up running dirt and for anything from go-karts to late models to all that stuff.

And first off, there’s no assist whatsoever. I’ve never drove a race car in my life or anything that had assists on it. The assists was what’s between your ears and hopefully used it smart enough. It’s one thing that’s really helped me is. Dirt experience on road course racing because you let these cars skew out so much.

You let these cars rotate so much through the corner. People think that [00:53:00] you are just turning left. No, and and Michael can tell you, there’s, if you follow behind me, you’ll be like, yep, he’s gone. Well, how the hell did he do that? There’s times I’ve, I’ve drove the car sideways and I look back at my dirt experience and it, it helps with that.

I reverted back when my late model went down middle of the se or middle of last season, I went back to the Z just play around a little bit. The trash control came on it rumbling in like a couple of turns and I’m like, just piece of shit. You know what I mean? I was like, stupid trash. I’m like reaching down, trying to hit the trash control button as I hate it.

You know? I, I wanna feel the car rotate. I wanna know what it’s doing and not have it stop itself. Cause it thinks it might lose control. You know what I mean? It’s just, it’s a whole nother level of driving that The thing people realize are street cars. That was like the weekend you had trouble with your light model and you unloaded the, uh, thunder roasters a backup that was miserable for him.

That, that, oh, it was so frustrating. He went from 700 plus horsepower to buck 80. Fuck 80. And I’m like literally getting pass by the light models and the bes, and I’m like trying to Fred Flinstone, like threw the floorboard, like trying to get the car to go past. Come on, come on, come on, come on. [00:54:00] But I caught him in the turns for a little bit and then he just left me again.

So like I get, it’s the same story we hear from ya owners. So, you know, whatever. You’re in good company, you know? Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s fun. So that brings up a really good question. I like to ask people. So what’s your biggest oops moment or maybe code brown moment on track with your late model? May hell’s win comparison to Kobe?

You know, honestly, when I first got my late model, I really haven’t had any major oopses. I’ve spotted a bunch, you know, in the race and practiced some whatever, test and tune. You know, honestly, the biggest oops was just, I jumped in way too fast. I went from my thunder roadster, which they’re fast, they’re faster in the turns, they armed straightaways.

And I gotta be honest, when I first went down the straightaway in my late model, I’m like, holy, I would never go back. I mean, that horsepower, that speed, that sound, I was like, I’m done. I’m hooked. That’s it. You know? And they road when you coming back, never nothing against those guys. Those are fantastic cars.

You don’t drive this thing, it just sounds like something off a tv, you know, and you’re just hooked on it immediately. I pushed it too hard, you know, I ended up [00:55:00] spinning a bunch of times. I was like in like fifth place in the race, my first race in a late model. Ended up spinning two or three times all the way to the back of the field.

Got all the way back to eighth place and then me and a Mustang got into it and turned on it, Rob, and then the white flag, you know, it is what it is. Both kind of entered the turn at the same time. I was on the inside. He was on the outside. Well, he ended up on my inside. I ended up outside backwards with the front busted up cliff that cost me a hundred bucks to fix.

He didn’t fare so well, unfortunately. You know, we just kind of met. But yeah, no, that’s mine. It wasn’t much. But, uh, I, I, I’ve got plenty coming. I’m sure. Yeah. Kobe, tell him you’re a fantastic story. Oh, well. Road Atlanta this past December. Did you have a, you didn’t have a car there, did you? No, I, mine, mine was still down.

Hey, were you at five? I think you were in the I was at third five. Yeah. It was, uh, it was actually, let me, lemme set this up cause he’s not gonna give it to you the right way. Cause there, this is a crazy story and a scary story, but it was kind of funny as hell. Cause it’s just, you gotta understand who Kobe Tims is.

Like when you get on the radio and tell him that looks like something’s wrong in his car. He goes f that let this bitch eat. And he just keeps right on going. [00:56:00] The dude has no fear and I’ve learned so much from his driving cuz he just doesn’t give a shit. Like, he just goes, he wants to win, he wants to be up front no matter what.

I mean, I’ve seen him spin it road at land or at, uh, Robling going to turn three. I’m coming around or I’m coming out at two and I see him over in the woods. I got a, a half a lap on him and, and the whole field does, and here he comes. A lap and a half later here he comes like a bat outta hell. I mean, he is just, he’s a, he’s a manc, you know, he’s just, but he’s a great driver, you know, he just, he knows what he’s doing, you know?

I, so, yeah. So to set this up, hang on Dad, you wait cuz I know where you’re going. He calls me up and he is like, Hey, come up to the track. We’re going road Atlanta. I need you to crew with spot. No problem. I’m on the way. So we go up there, we’re hanging out, we’re having a good time. It was what, two races that weekend.

Saturday went shittily because you ended up with carbon oxide poisoning cuz you’re, you’re frigging exhaust pipe. Let loose the header. Start there first. I, I’ll preface that and then you can start. Okay. Saturday, we had a really fast car. We’re doing great. I started getting a little lightheaded, a little choked up in the car.

I was like, what the hell’s wrong with this [00:57:00] thing? Started getting sick in the car. Next thing I knew, I threw up in my helmet and I was like, oh shit, what’s going on? I seen the flagman, I think he threw down three to go or something at us and or something like that, and I was like, I’m gonna hang onto it.

I’m gonna hang onto it. I finished the race and I noticed the car was louder for a reason. The collector pipe, after the headers that runs down the transmission tube come loose, it was dumping all the exhaust in there with me, the radio. He goes, get back here quick. I’m not feeling too hot. I was like, what?

Yeah, like as soon as we gotta the checker flag, I dropped the window net was literally ripping my helmet off, going around the track. I didn’t care what they said about it. Come all the way around, all the way back to paddock. You know when that car’s going slow, it’s not getting a lot of fresh air in it at all.

So I was gagging to death. I got back to our pit box and his wife was there and I, I call her Mother Goose cuz she takes care of me. I don’t know what I did. I looked at her, I said something and I think she called Michael and said, get medical up here. I can’t remember what, what was my oxygen level? It was not good.[00:58:00]

I don’t remember what it was, but it was that. Was that a number? It was, yeah. Yeah, it was. Oh shit. Cause they put him in the ambulance, took him down to the medical facility there at Road Atlanta and had him for two hours on oxygen. Yeah. And they were getting transporting. That’s how Lowie was like. He did not look good when he got outta the car.

Let’s just put it that way. We come back in Saturday night. I think we had our awards bank with that night, didn’t we? Mm-hmm. I was sick as a dog. I had carbon oxide poison as long as weekends. Looking back, I shouldn’t have raced the next day, but we Did you guess who raced the next day? He said, I’m still gonna send it.

No, he did. It’s full sends only with Kobe Tims. That’s should be his nickname. Kobe Full send only Tims. So we get the car back, we have the NASA awards banquet and all that. We go to that. Me and you stayed up and fixed the car. We got it ready to go. So we go out Sunday. We had a good day. We were running good.

I thought practice to qualify. Went great, man. Yeah, went great. We developed what about five or six laps in a little smoke. Now mind you, this is how competitive this guy is. This was a fundraise. They raced the, the race on Sunday and then they had a fundraise. So he went out, no [00:59:00] guts, no glory, just hey, let’s go have fun.

And went to the rear behind what, like 3000 cars or something like that? Oh my god, dude. The, the, you guys were stacked up in the like, Turned nine when they took the green flag at the start finish. There were so many cars in there, dude. I think they had the rollback out there racing too. I mean, everybody was out there, so I told him, I’m gonna go spot for you and turn five.

I’ll be on top of the golf cart. I got you. I can see pretty much the whole back of the track. I think Debbie and Brittany were up front. Mm-hmm. He comes around, I guess he was like, yeah, four or five laps in and he is moving. I mean, just flying, like carving the field up, ripping it up. Like truly showing what a late model can do.

You know what I mean? Just. Eight to 12 cars a lap down the back street. Yeah. He was just ripping ’em down the back straight. And then he was, he was just nailing all of his marks that rode Atlanta. I mean, he knows the track really well and he was really doing well. And he comes up turn five and I see fire and the wheel well behind the tire, kind of like up by the firewall, like where the headers come down.

And I, one thing about Kobe Tims and, and Ktr number 13 is if, if he’s not smoking something is wrong. Like always he comes up, he, he was smoking lightly the whole [01:00:00] time. I figured he’d probably just put too much rear gear dope in it or something like that. It was blowing off the breather and, and it was hitting something hot.

Everything was fine, power was good, temps were good. Um, on the radio, making sure, and, and he comes up, he’s on fire. I see a flash of flames come out of the wheel well behind the tire by the headers and all that good stuff. And I’m like, at, you’re on fire? And I’m like, bring it in. He goes, let me see what it does.

And he goes in the six comes outta six, comes outta seven. I see him get outta the back straight. He wasn’t on fire. He said, eff and I’m gonna let this bitch eat. I’m like, here we go. Before I can turn around, there’s three specky 46 s coming up, turn five sideways. I think he dropped oil on the track or something and it probably ignited, you know, on the headers and that’s probably what cooked his entire wiring harness and all that good stuff.

And before I could turn back around, there’s a mushroom cloud over by turn nine. And I’m like, well I’m on the radio. Kobe, Kobe, Kobe, Kobe. I’m like, shit, I get on the golf cart, I fall ass over there. There he is on fire, full engulfed. I’m like, great. We come outta seven. And Michael told me, you know, he’s seen flames, [01:01:00] smoking or whatever.

And I was thinking it’s just something on the headers or or whatever. It’ll burn off. When I went under the bridge and I went to pull the car back into fourth gear. When I went into fourth gear, the shifter boot just disintegrated. And flame come up through it. So I’m what end? The fourth, what about 140 mile an hour or so?

Yeah, you’re, you were probably doing between one 30 and one 50 somewhere. Now you were flying because you came outta seven. Like a bat of hell and I’m on fire and I’m trying to get this thing loaded up. Get this thing stopped. I didn’t know if it was fuel, if it was oil. If, I mean what was going on? We’re putting pretty big, pretty good bit of wind of the fire at 140 mile an hour.

So I top the bridge and I see the next corner worker is before you, I guess we’ll call it eight before you get where the club course would come back on the track. Yep. Get to nine to the corner worker there. So I start gearing it down and I’m already dropping winnet, dropping seat belts, you know, trying to get out, get ready to get out of the car.

And I did what you’re not supposed to do, and I’ll admit it. I panicked when I got the car stopped. Me and Michael are, you know, we’re bigger, taller guys. [01:02:00] He’s, I’m about six, one and a half, six. Did you start yelling, save me Jesus. Save me Tom Cruise. Dude, I was, I was in the car. I think we got it to about 24 seconds with flame.

Wow. I went to pull the fire handle and the fire handle had already melted to the dash. You know, it was getting a little creepy at this point. We got oil burning, we’ve got the fiberglass body burning the legs and windshields burning and I’m choking to death. When I dumped the seatbelts, I got ’em hung in my ha’s device and I couldn’t get loose and I’m sitting there trying to fight to get loose and his smoke’s getting darker and it’s.

It was what, like two o’clock in the afternoon? I couldn’t see him right here. I mean it was, I was blind and I’m screaming at the corner. Worker help me, help me, help me. I mean, cuz he’s literally 20 yards from me. He was maybe, no, it wasn’t even that. He was like 15 feet from you. At best I could, I could see the, his eyeballs and I’m screaming, help me come help me.

You know, you got a damn fire extinguisher, bring it over here. And he wouldn’t do anything. For some reason I just kept fighting to live and I kept fighting with it. Fighting with it. I went and I finally got [01:03:00] loose outta the seat belts. I got out of the car and I ran and got the fire extinguisher off the wall.

And I probably should have called Road Atlanta and shoot everybody out. But I didn’t. And this corner worker says the firetruck will be here in about 30 seconds. I said, the damn thing will be burnt oven in 30 seconds. Gimme the fire extinguisher. And I grabbed it off the wall, ran back, stuck it in the hood, meant and dumped it.

But I guess I was, I was running on adrenaline then because after that I collapsed to the ground. And that was the second time he went to the medical facility at Road Atlanta on the same weekend. The car was scorched, man. It was, it was bad. It scared a lot of all of us. I mean, everybody that went by Tracy was on the, you know, on the track at that time.

There were several drivers, you know, that were really close friends with. They didn’t know what to do, whether they needed to stop and help him or they were just throwing yellow, no, not even double yellows. They were racing by him while they were on, he was on fire. It was, it was crazy. Thankfully he got out, he was right on the edge of the track and when he stepped out, he actually stepped onto the track.

And thankfully everybody was far enough left realizing what was going on, even with the yellow flags, that they kept them safe. But speaking negative [01:04:00] about the situation would be bashing road Atlanta or bashing nasa, but F you, whatever. I don’t care you, you could have threw a red flag. What’s it gonna hurt?

I’m literally on fire. And Tracy could do, was the leader of the race. And she literally was gonna stop on the track and help me get out of the car. It was that bad. Heidi was like, where’s the red flag? Why is there not a red flag? I was yelling at the corner record, throw the red, throw the red, because he was just out there, you know, and, and thankfully fire got there pretty quick and they were still like, just racing.

I was like, this is a fun race, man. Shut this thing down. Wasn’t cool, but we learned a lot that day. You know, it’s, it’s one of those things the rescue crew got to me, you know, once I seen the, you know, they were putting the fire out or whatever. I. I finally got in the ambulance and we’re going down the back stretch and where we always park.

We call it Mafia Hill, which is up at 10 a above the, the bleachers or whatever. I told the ambulance driver, I said, when you go by here, I said, my people’s up here on the hill. When you go by, throw a thumbs up out the window and let ’em know I’m okay. I’m alive. Apparently Debbie misunderstood that is he’s dead or something.

[01:05:00] I don’t know. He thought he said, come bad. They nearly beat us to the infield care center. It was a life changing experience. I’ll, I’ll say that, and it’s really pushed me to help others in racing. Don’t buy the cheap fire suit man. Don’t buy the cheap seat belts. Don’t buy the cheap gloves. Wear your underwear.

Cause we all, you know, we all wear fire suits and we all think, oh it’s not gonna happen to me. Bullshit. It can happen. And it happened to me. Biggest fear is, you know, in racing, I think for anybody that’s on track and has taken this stuff seriously with a car that really has some performance to, it’s, it’s one thing to be out there in a mini Cooper, you know, or you know, just a regular old streetcar.

But I mean, dude, if you hit the wall the right way, something might pop. You know, and next thing you know, you’re engulfed in flames. Wishing to God you had all that gear. I had a nice alpine star suit that was getting kind of old. I upgraded mine. You know, I, I just, nope, not taking that chance. Hava, no. Mix underwear, socks.

I mean, look, NASA does an excellent job. No fault to them, you know, it’s that they weren’t in control of the corner workers. I think that NASA does a great, great job with safety just like the rest of the clubs do. But it’s [01:06:00] because of them that they’ve ingrained into us to wear all that stuff, right? Cause look, a lot of your dirt track guys, dude, they got suits that are 25 years old.

They don’t wear gloves, they don’t wear baclava. I, I never understood as far as dirt track racing. And I got buddies that will not wear gloves. And why though? Cause I can feel the steering wheel better and my long time saying that. I’ve always used, and this may be too R-rated, you’re not gonna wear the gloves in the race car.

Who’s gonna hold your pecker when you need to piss when you’re burnt. It’s so true though, because you don’t think about it. You go to the racetrack, whether it’s a track day or a race. Ah, it ain’t gonna happen to me. I’ll be fine. Next thing you know, you’re fully engulfed in flames going, uh oh. Mm-hmm.

There’s a problem. That’s another de tractor. You know, late models are, they’re wild, man. I mean, you know, you got. Parts moving extremely fast for what they are. You know what I mean? And it’s shit happens dude, and you gotta be ready for it. And thankfully, you know, the only thing Kobe really happened to him, a little bit of smoke inhalation and some more oxygen solved that problem for him.

And, you know, pretty much burned his nose a little bit. And yeah. But thank God, I mean, he had his, [01:07:00] he had his visor down. The flames were still coming up, you know, under his helmet throws baklava. But I mean, think about it, no baklava on visor up. People don’t think about that. They just cruiser out their visor up.

Man, I, that’s something I enforce more in racing is, you know, keeping the shield down because it’s there for a reason. And that weekend was the first weekend I actually started using a helmet sock. So I had on the Bach Abla and, and the helmet sock. So it’s kind of double protection. But even with the shield down, even with the sock.

You know the helmet socked. I still got flame in the helmet. As someone who’s experienced being on fire before, not in a car or anything, it’s weird cause they always teach you as a kid to catch fire, stop dropping and roll. For me, I was working on a, and fuel got sprayed on me and a backfired, and I wound up being a ball of flame running through the field.

I never thought to hit the ground. It’s one of those things that you never think about and it’s like, no, you were saying that you got hung up in your belts trying to get out. I can’t imagine how bad that would’ve freaked out because. I was freaking out running through the damn yard with just being like my whole face and chest on fire and my arms.

So I [01:08:00] was like, I’d hate to imagine being stuck in a car having trouble with my hungs. I, I did freak out. I, I did get a little crazy there for a second, but I had to tell myself to calm down and get out of that car. I mean, I was hacking, coughing, wheezing, trying to get some fresh air, and I was in it for over 20 seconds.

I say, I say 24, 25 seconds. My fire suit’s done. I will not wear it again. It’s hanging on the shot block, you know, being bigger guys, you know, Kobe’s 6 1, 6 2, I’m six four. You know, getting little, you know, they, they look like massive cars, but when you’re in the cockpit, it’s. Yeah, there’s no, I mean, you got your helmet on your Hans device and all this gear, you know, you got radio wires everywhere and, and just being able to maintain that calm when you’re, you’re on a fire is just next level, man.

I mean, it’s, it’s scary. I admitted, I panicked when it happened. When I got stopped and I was trying to get all the belts off and the radio unhooked. I finally figured out afterwards tearing the car down. The reason I didn’t hear Michael on the radio is cuz the radio harness had already burnt up. I wasn’t gonna hear him.

I looked. I looked at Kobe once we knew he was [01:09:00] okay, he was back in the pits with us. You know, we all, we all hugged it out for a minute and tried to make light of the situation. I looked at him and I said, you know, NASA’s big into safety, you know, and, and, and kudos to that for that. You know, everybody that, that works for nasa, the owners of NASA are great.

We’ll be impounded for whatever after a race or qualifying. And, you know, they’ll say, all right. Exit drills and we’re like, oh, you know, you have to get outta the car in 15 seconds, you know? Well, I looked at Kobe and I said, I bet you’re, we do those exit drills now, aren’t you? And he just kind of shook his head and laugh.

It’s all there for a reason, you know, pay attention. They make you try to do the exit drills in the dark covered in they, that’s where it’s gonna be when it happens. Yeah, it’s not gonna be in a, on a nice sunny day, that’s for sure. It’s not gonna happen where the safety director can go. All right, try it again.

See? Yeah. I told you my story sucked. This is actually a great segue into the future of things, right? So let’s first start off with what’s the future of K T R number 13. Where are things now? You know, maybe now that we’re six months away from the fire, is there a new car? Are there more plans? What’s going on there?

And let’s also dive into the future of Late Model Mafia and where [01:10:00] things are going there as well. As far as the future of K T R, we plan on going back road racing soon. I’ve had a lot going in my life in the past four months, six months, something like that. Just a little bit of my story. The fire happened the first weekend of December and at Road Atlanta, two days after Christmas, my grandfather was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.

I, out of respect for him, I stepped away from racing for a little while. Cause it made him nervous. He passed away back in April, so there was three or four months there. I was not behind the wheel. Actually had another car that I was in the process of purchasing, ready to go. That deal just didn’t work out.

And we’re, uh, looking at doing another car and I’m gonna try something really crazy. And Michael and Debbie’s not too happy about it. Alpine Stars saved me in a race car, so we’re gonna take, we’re gonna go two wheel racing. Oh, interesting. Yes, sir. I keep telling him he is not 18 anymore and with age comes cage, but he doesn’t wanna listen.

He’s not as old as I am, so I guess he’s still got a little bit of a shot at it. But I came from Motor Souls. I know how bad it hurts to wreck and break seven bones at one time. I want to try, I may do it one [01:11:00] time and say, no, forget this. And then again I may, I may love it. I don’t know. It’s just something I want to try.

I’ve always been a fan of, you know, Moto GP and stuff like that. I wanna try that. But my roots are in stock car racing and I’m not gonna leave home. I, I know where I belong. So Michael, what about the future of Late Model Mafia? What’s, what’s going on? Late Model Mafia is here to stay, to be honest. It’s grown to a point, especially with Pit Lane, where I think we’re gonna step into a new venture too.

That’ll be more of the Parent to Late Model Mafia, and it’ll be Motor Sports Mafia. We’re really gonna branch out. I, I think the Late Model Mafia was a bit too niche for, you know, the general motor sports population. And I think that from the feedback that Kobe and I are receiving, I think it’s, it’s wise for us to maybe expand it out a little bit.

Motorsports Mafia is on the horizon. We’ll be transitioning anyone that’s not late model related over to Motorsports Mafia, it’ll be two wheels, it’ll be four wheels, it’ll be road racing, asphalt, dirt, rally, whatever you name it. Bring it. Like we’re, we’re here to be one cohesive, you know, Motorsports family and have [01:12:00] fun and help people market their teams and, and just get out there, get the exposure they need.

You know, we’re hoping maybe one of these days, one of these teams makes it through the big time. We can say that we had a small part in helping them get there. Look forward to Motorsports Mafia. We have, uh, one more exciting thing that I, I guess I’ll release right here for the first. Under Motor Sports Mafia and and subbed out by Late Model Mafia.

We are actually in the process of building out our first mobile simulator rig. Basically we have a short bus, which is very fitting for late Model Mafia as you can hear from the past hour or so. And we are putting in two full-blown simulator rigs in the back and we will be basically traveling to dirt tracks, asphalt ovals, road course tracks, you name it.

And whoever wants to jump into the simulators, feel free to do so. Come on in. We’ll, you know, we’ll load up eye racing, we’ll get everything on and we’ll load the track that we’re at or you know, and we’ll let people run it out and, and have fun and see what these drivers experience out there. A lot of families out there, especially at the oval tracks, you know, and the dirt tracks.

There’s a lot of spectators that maybe wanna see what it’s like and, and we definitely think it’d be cool to bring something like that to the crowd. So, and then of [01:13:00] course, you know, your club racing and all that, at 5:00 PM everybody shuts down the beer drinking commences. And what better place to go? Try to see if you can handle Robling Road than after a six-pack in, in a simulator.

So who knows? I mean, it could be a lot of fun. So yeah, we’re excited. Sounds like a. We’re excited to announce that the bus is about, uh, uh, about a quarter of the way built. We, we just gutted it and painted the whole thing and, and we’re getting ready to build all the foundation on the inside power and all that good stuff, and we’re hoping to have it ready to rock and roll for 2023.

So Mike and Kobe, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t cover up until this point in the episode? First and foremost, goes out to my crazy ass wife for putting up with all this stuff. I mean, I love her to death. Uh, my stepson, Zach, the rest of the family, you know, for being there by my side and, and just putting up with my shenanigans and, you know, help me succeed in this stuff, you know, and just go out and have fun as a family.

A couple of sponsors, I, I can’t not mention. Hurricane Tumblr, uh, speedy Race Wear, Trinity Motor Sports, M FFR, X Designs and Chaka and VI and hd. Just a couple that kind of helped me get to where I’m at with mgr, with Michael Gallagher racing in [01:14:00] the 45 Late Model. You know, looking back over the years racing, I, it started with my mom and dad helping me as far as, you know, getting started in dirt, go-kart racing and stuff.

And my dad actually opened a cart shop and ran a cart shop the same time I was racing all those years. So my dad’s been a really big influence on me racing, and he’s a big shout out. I owe him, I owe him one. He spent a lot of money. When I was younger, I didn’t realize it, but looking back now on, you know, on a race team, you go, damn pop spent some money.

We traveled all over the place. We were going 5, 6, 7 states a year on the road. And that’s, that’s some money the past few years. I have to thank Michael and Debbie Yer. They’ve been a big part of my promotion. I I, I’m the wrench monkey. They handled the marketing and the brains of the business. You know, Zach, his, his stepson’s been a big help to me, means the world to me.

I give him hell. But that’s my buddy, my fiance Brittany, has put up with a, a lot of shit the last few years from wrecking and on fire and, you know, everything else. Oh, that’s a big one. As far as sponsors and stuff, I’ve got some really good connections in racing. Um, Jimmy Garmin’s one. You know, he’s [01:15:00] a big supporter of mine.

Allen Thornton, Jack Stanford. Those guys have been a big help to us in the Late Model program. They’re wicked fast. Carla Scan, he’s been a big help to me. Jim Barfield, if anybody knows old school NASCAR, probably knows that name. He was very influential in Bill Elliot’s career, and he’s helped me a lot.

It’s been a fun ride. And you know, I look forward to what 22 brings, and I think 23 is gonna be a really big year for Motorsport Mafia, whether we’re doing it on four wheels or two, or I’m sitting on the pit box, drinking beer, screaming at Michael. I don’t know. We’ll, we’ll see where we go with it, but I, I’m looking forward to it.

If you’re a late model enthusiast or wanna learn more about the community that Mike and Kobe have created, be sure to stop over at www.latemodelmafia.com or follow them on social media at Late Model Mafia or Instagram, TikTok as well at. Like Model Mafia Marico on Facebook. That’s right. And Mike and Kobe, I can’t thank you guys enough for coming on the show and giving us better insight into the world of late models, kind of giving us a better idea of what [01:16:00] that really means and getting us excited to come check out some of the races and maybe even get behind the wheel of one of these monsters.

So thank you for everything that you’re doing in the Motorsports community to continue to spread this type of enthusiasm and share this part of the Motorsports world with the rest of our audience and everybody that’s out there that might be interested in learning about this for the first time. So thank you.

Thanks for having us, guys. We appreciate it.

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour 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 at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew, chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix and we wanted to remind you that GTM [01:17:00] 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 GTMs swag.

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