Rooster Hall Racing

Johan Schwarz (left) #80 – is from Hjembaek, Denmark. He started driving for RHR in 2018. Johan began racing when he was 17 years old competing at his home dirt track (rally cross) in Denmark. This then led him to open wheel racing that later turned into sports car racing. His favorite part of RHR is the family atmosphere. When Johan is not at the track, he enjoys spending time with his wife and 2 kids. Team Owner Todd Brown (right), is from Culpepper, VA. Started RHR in 2013 and began racing when he was 32 years old competing at his home track Summit Point Raceway. He started in kart racing which then led him to sports car racing and some Baja. He is proud of RHR, the team, it’s employees and crew, watching them master their trade. When Todd isn’t on track, he is a musician playing drums, guitar and piano.

Cover Photo courtesy of: Andrew Benjack, SRO Motorsports, VIR 2022. 

• Origin Story – how did Johan Schwarz and Todd Brown get started in motorsports?
• Rooster Hall Racing – what’s its history, how has it come together. What’s in a name? The Significance of “Rooster Hall” 
• Guinness Book of World records for Longest Drift – 8hrs, 232.5 miles, with mid flight refueling in a BMW M5 
• In a previous DT episode we actually talked about the Tesla Plaid Record at VIR (On Grand) against the new Porsche Taycan. And we came to find out that Johan was the driver of that Tesla – let’s expand on this. 
• Jokingly you guys have a combined 114 years of racing between you, you might be the “oldest” in the SRO paddock, so let’s talk about your SRO experiences; and the series
• Future of the RHR team
• Thoughts on the reveal of the new BMW M4 GT4 – will you be upgrading/switching cars.

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. The following episode is brought to you by S r o Motorsports America and their partners at a w s CrowdStrike, Fantech Pelli, and the Skip Barber Racing School. Be sure to follow all the racing action by visiting www.sromotorsports.com.

Or take a shortcut to Gtam america.us and be sure to follow them on social at Gt underscore America on Twitter and Instagram at s Rro Gtam America on Facebook and catch live coverage of the races on their YouTube channel at GT World. Walking through the paddock at any motorsports event affords you the ability to see a lot of really cool things.

Everything is designed to capture your attention and draw your eyes and ears to it from the fast looking cars. With their colorful liberties and ear pleasing exhaust notes to the giant [00:01:00] flags denoting the team garages. But this weekend, one logo really stands out among the crowd, and that’s the giant Red Rooster emblazoned on the B M W M four of Rooster Hall Racing.

That’s right. Brad Rooster Hall Racing traces its roots to 2002 with the purchase of a highly modified E 30 M three. And today the team campaigns cars in both B M W C C A Club Racing and S R O America team owner Todd Brown and Lead driver, Johann Schwartz. Join us live to talk about supporting cars in both series, the history of Rooster Hall Racing and some great paddock stories.

So let’s jump back into our session at v i. So welcome to Break Fix, Johann and Todd. You’re welcome. Thank you. Thank you. So, like, all good break fix stories. We wanna start out with the origin. So how did you guys get started in motorsports? Well, uh, I, I, I, I guess I can go first. My, uh, my love for motorsports has been, I, I remember when I was like five or six years old and I [00:02:00] could name all the cars and I kind of felt bad for when somebody was high revving their engine because, you know, to me, Soul, right?

So why would you mistreat somebody, uh, a car like that? And then I, I started really getting into the motorsports end of it. And, and being from Denmark, it was rallying rally sprints close course. Yeah, you were Conent and the Steve Blan twists and all those guys, they were just, uh, finishing off their careers.

But that’s kind of when I started catching up, watching. Then I started racing, um, on a local dirt, uh, road course, which was known as rally sprint, but with chump. Or champ, like cars, you know, very low, but for everybody to go out there and, and race, there was a claimer rule and then, uh, it just went from there into Formula Ford.

And then I started actually racing go-karts for seat time. So I, I went into the cars first before I went to the go-kart. Because my parents didn’t really know anything about Motorsport, so they had no idea where to support me and how to get me involved in it. So it was all driven by myself, and [00:03:00] then I just drove whatever I could.

Came to the States in the early nineties, back in Denmark. I had seen a little lap timing system when I was racing in formal forts. That would give an instant onboard lap time. Come to find out it was a Danish product. Brought it here to the states. And, uh, had a, uh, a contact that had good contact with Hendrick Motorsports.

I installed it in Ricky Rus in Kenny Schrader’s car. So all of a sudden I opened my eyes up to nascar. I’m like, this is what I want to do. I had come to find out I had the wrong accent for that one, especially back then, but I had a blast. Got to know a lot of people. Slowly kind of got myself into the road racing part here in the States.

Raced a lot of S E C A and nasa. Then it grew from there. Got together with some people doing some, uh, longer endurance races and then started racing SRO in, uh, 2013 basically in sro. There’s been a few years I was in transition from one class to another and then been there in a since and raced a little bit of IMSA too, and raises a lot of.

Endurance [00:04:00] races and also race for a team out of Florida for the uh, S C C A runoffs. We are trying to qualify for that, so I try to still race as much as I can, and I believe till this point here, this year, there’s four weekends I’ve been off all the other weekends I’ve been on racetrack, so I enjoyed a lot.

With the support of my family. Right. I got You wanna mention a championship or two? Oh yeah. And then, you know, with Rooster Hall, I, I was gonna let you do that. Uh, talking about the history of Rooster Hall. Right. Then we got together in 2018. Mm-hmm. Started campaigning at 2 41 of the, uh, factory built race cars in the TC class place.

Third in the championship there. One first year, right. Yeah. Won, uh, three or four race. And then in 2019, again with West Virginia on the curb, one of the most beautiful paid schemes I’ve seen out there. I loved it. And uh, we won, I think, uh, nine out of 14 races, something like that, and championship. And we got second in the, um, standings amongst, at the rating of all BMW drivers in the world.

And Brewster Hall is a team, [00:05:00] I believe that’s, Third, so we won the championship in 19 and I’d won a previous uh, championship in 2015 in touring car as well. That’s kind of my racing background, has been my blood. And my mom is here from Denmark watching this weekend, and she still doesn’t understand what’s going on and how this thing happens and.

You know, what are all those buttons for on the steering wheels and, you know, all that. So it’s fun to explain that to her. She’s just watching in an awe, but it’s a lot of fun to have her. My, uh, sister is here from Spain as well. Mm-hmm. So we have a whole family get together. My two kids are here watching as well.

That’s great. And I, I hearing your origin story, what we’re gonna talk about later makes a lot of sense. You know, when we talk about your, your longest drift, if you’ve got rally, rally, sprint and rally X experience and your, the guy mentioned the ice racing. Oh yeah, I did. Of course. Who has it? I did. I’ve, I was born and raised on a farm, so that’s also how I kept practice.

Bought old beat up cars. Mm-hmm. On the harvested fields in the summer. [00:06:00] Set up a rally course, obviously. And my friend and I were timing each other, had a little in competition. And then when the winter came in, the little two acre pond that we had, We did the same thing, put a St. Ties in the front ball, ties in the back, and we had a blast over steering the whole time with the front wheel drive car.

So that’s a great segue to Todd to talk about his motor horse background and the creation of Rooster Hall racing it’s history. You know what’s in the name right? The significance of Rooster Hall. So mine goes back to age five or six as well. I was born in 62 and I woke up to cars in 1960. I can tell you when I moved from Cincinnati, Ohio, where I grew up to Virginia, where I spent the rest of my life, I could tell you every car on my street, even today and what year it was.

I had every Hot Wheels car made from 1968 to 1970, and my parents knew that I was just this car nut. Car, car, car, car, car. So in 1971, my mother, she takes me to see this movie called Lamont with Steve [00:07:00] McQueen. Well, this would be great for Todd, and I think it was rated R. Maybe she takes me to the movie. We walk out of that and all I want to do is race cars.

You know, at this point, I’m eight or nine years old. The last thing my mother ever wanted, her son. Was race cars because in the move of the elk crash and burn up, my mother did not see me race Untilt. I was 53 years old. Oh man. And the only reason she came out is because my son was in the same race, moved forward many years.

It was, I was 32 years old. I started going to the track at Summit Point, they called Friday at the track. And I went there for five years and I became an instructor for eight. And during that whole time, I was racing go-karts like Yohan. And then I made the decision to make the plunge into BMW club racing.

And I’ve been doing that now for 18 years, I guess formally won a couple of national championships there. Although my son is still faster than I am. That’s how we you [00:08:00] want it to be, right? Exactly. But that’s not the way it all, and in the meantime, talked about this a little bit off, uh, microphone, but my son Sean is.

Twice the world championship in soapbox derby racing, which is a lot more car control than you would ever think because you follow the crown of the road and you follow the cones and inch off the cones the entire way down the track. And the world championships are a little different and there’s cross winds and all kind of things, but that was really neat.

Espn uh, had a documentary on us through that. I guess this was about 7, 8, 9 years ago. I was looking for a place where I could maybe expand my car collection because we had kind of grown out of our garage. I had five cars in a three car garage. I was at a restaurant, saw this free real estate publication, and this shop was for sale.

40 minutes from my house, but 15 minutes from my wife’s parents’ house. I said, Hm. And it was just weird enough that no one would buy it except for me. [00:09:00] Maybe it was a 5,000 square foot garage with a 1200 square foot nice apartment on it. That’s every guy street right there. Yeah, so this guy built this. He was a single guy.

His girlfriend lived next door in the property next door, who happened to be a realtor, and he built this for his car collection and for his rv unfortunately. Got cancer and died. And so we bought it from the estate from his girlfriend, the realtor, and she said, well, the name of the place is Rooster Hall.

You can keep it. You can do whatever you want. Just wanted to let you know that. And I said, you know what? We’ll keep that name, tip of the cap to him. Three years later, it was seven years ago, decided to start a a real race team. We said, here we go. And you know, what are we gonna name the team and sorry for all the guys that name it after themselves.

I wasn’t into that. Didn’t want Todd Brown racing or TBR or whatever it might be. One of the guys on my team said, why don’t you call it Rooster Hall Racing? I said, you know, that’s just wacky enough. [00:10:00] That’s cool enough. We’ll make it around the rooster, you know? And we got the biggest rooster in the paddock, that’s for darn sure.

And on the side of our tractor trailer here. PG version of that. The pg, that’s correct. Yeah, that’s right. Then listeners, you can put that together yourself. Yes. That’s the basic story and how Rooster Hall got started and how our racing deal got started. I was the. Of the team before, um, Johan came aboard, we had Anthony Oli as a driver, and Anthony, we won Crew of the year.

That year, the next year with Johann, we won Rookie of the Year. Nope, that was Anthony. Oh, was Anthony. Anthony won, yeah. The year. Then we won Crew of the Year the first year with, with Johann. Sorry about that. Yeah, and then we won the championship. And then this year, I’m gonna turn 60 years old this year and I said, you know, I don’t have a whole lot of years left of high quality driving.

Let’s do it Johann. Let’s go to Sprint X. Went out and bought a GT four, M four GT four. Ended up buying yet another. I had an [00:11:00] M two csr. Bought another one of, another one of those. When Colin Garrett’s family and Colin came to me. I know his father known his father for 35. And he’s an up and coming NASCAR driver, and they said, we’re looking for him to get more road course stuff.

Good marriage. And we’re sitting here right after Collins win here at V I R. Congratulations to all my, yeah, thank you. He’s he a great race. He’s a consummate professional and he could really go places. He’s only 21. Yeah, he’s fast. He got tall and he, and he listens. He listens to VJ Meran, his coach, and to Johann his, his coach here.

He really absorbs everything they say, and that’s a true student. So you guys are campaigning two cars, an M two in Tcx, which is now currently, if you’ll, as we talked to Jim Jordan on our previous episode, is. Comprised mostly of BMWs hoping to change that. Right now it’s all bmw, right? Yeah, right. He always puts an asterisk there.

Yeah, he does. It’s gonna change in the future. Yeah. We’re gonna see how that goes. So we won’t talk about futures. And the [00:12:00] second car is in Sprint X, where both of you switch off and drive the car in a 60 minute race, is that correct? All GT four cars? Yeah, all GT four, which I believe they’re 40 off this weekend.

They’re 40. Big field. Very popular class. For example, this evening, 4:05 PM I will drive the first half, hand it over to Johann tomorrow. He will drive the first half and hand it over to me. Well, we’re looking forward to seeing how that race turns out. Yeah. If you’re driving the first half, our other teams, I’m assuming it’s split up with, well, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but is it a Pro Am kind of series that’s, this is interesting.

Yeah, and, and I, I’m, I’ll, I’ll start it. He can finish it. We’re am, am. Because of our age. Okay? Okay. At a certain age, I don’t know, it’s 50 or 55. What is it? 50 50. You get knocked down one rating. One rating. If you’re a silver pro, when you pass 50, you’re gonna become a bronze. If you’re a gold or platinum, you get knocked down.[00:13:00]

One just because your reflexes they say aren’t as quick as they once were. And it’s probably true. My son’s again, probably quicker than mine. We can benefit from that in the AM side because he was a pro. But technically is, technically is not now. Because we’re both bronze drivers, so we’ll be competing in the amm.

Then there’s the Pro Am championship, right where there is a silver rated or higher mm-hmm. Together with a bronze rated. That’s the pro and then the silver class, which is both silver drivers, so, so there’s in a sense, three races within that race. All racing TT four cars, but also having their own little internal battles in there.

Our listeners are about to find out that Johann, you have two records under your belt that we know of. Yep. Um, well, let’s start with, uh, probably the most famous one, which is your longest drift records in the Guinness Book of World Records. We looked it up, it was eight hours, 232.5 miles. Correct. Tell us about that.

What led to you wanting to do that other than just. Being [00:14:00] in in your, in your entire experience. Tell us about the refueling. How did that go? We saw the videos we saw from our perspective. It looked kind of interesting, but yeah. How was it from your perspective? The start of it was, I used to teach down at the BMW school down in Spartanburg, right next to the BMW factory.

I was leading a class. During lunch, somebody ask me, because we go to the skid pad and learn skit control. And if people are good at that, we also let them drift, you know, see how they can keep the car sideways. So as instructors, we demonstrate that, and then we go out of the drift, and then it’s the student’s turn.

So during lunch, this guy, and I wish I knew who it was, I remember who it was because he’s the one that started all this really. He deserves a lot of credit. So, um, he asked me, how long do you think I could go without spinning out? In the drift. I was like, well, I, I don’t know. I’ve never tried. And then I went home that night to look at Guinness and, and see if there was a record for the longest drift.

And there was, and I’m like, and I [00:15:00] sent a email to Guinness about the rules for that, you know, what parameters we had. And it said nothing about that the skid pad could be wet. Mm-hmm. You know, so I didn’t want to ask them, can the skid pad be wet? Will it still count? I read between the. I submitted for it, and that was in 2013.

So I did that basically on my own using the facility there in the F 10 BMW FM M five back then and no refueling. Just filled it up. And then we, uh, had a sponsor. I put sponsorships together. That all went to charity, the BMW charity conjunction with a golf tournament down. And then the M school that’s down there.

So I tried to create that triangle of partners that were involved and went 51 miles and the internet blew up. We made our own little video about it. It got over a billion views. I remember coming out of the movie theater after the event, and we went in to check how many views there was, and it went up by a hundred thousand by every 10, 15 minutes because [00:16:00] Yahoo Sports at the time had taken it in and.

And BMW actually took notice to that all the attention. It was great. It was fun to do. Didn’t think I was gonna do it again. Then the new M five comes out, which now is an all-wheel drive car and the purest M owner am enthusiast and M car can only be rear wheel drive. So then BMW Corporate now took the opportunity to say, If you turn this knob in the car, you can go from all-wheel drive to two-wheel drive, and if you want to, you can drift it for a long time.

So gin is now because of this wet record that I set back then they’re now established. Okay, we have a dry record and we have a wet record. You have a window of eight hours to see how long you can drift and basical. The clock starts and then it stops, and then you can stop and change tires or fuel and eat lunch, whatever you want to do.

But we wanted to make it continuous, just like the first record, and to make it rival. In order [00:17:00] for us to continue drifting for eight hours or six hours, whatever, we had to refuel, we had to basically refuel every hour and a half, every 45 hour, 45 minutes. And so that was the viral component. So I go out, obviously put it in two wheel drive start and BMW’s goal was to beat the old record.

Now Toyota had it, you know, so there was a back and forth fun rivalry and they just wanted to beat it and say okay. But I was, I was internally set on, prepared myself physically with all the right things to be in a car for eight hours, but not dehydrate myself. Right. You get the idea that physically or in the car, correct.

I go out and I start drifting, and we had two tanks in the car, the main tank which BMW comes with, and then the tank on top of it, which was the one we were gonna refuel into, and then pump from that tank into the main tank. So in order for us not to have anything happen with the vfu in the beginning, [00:18:00] we wanted to beat the record.

We had now three hours worth of fuel, and that would allow us now to go for the a hundred miles. I go there and it gets, it gets a little monotonous at the time. Still have to throttle and steer all the time, but you know, I mean the concentration level. So I actually had my phone hooked up to Bluetooth and uh, made some phone calls.

Listen, some of the BMW folks that were involved, right? And they were so funny to hear them pick up the phone. Johan. Like, yeah, like are you supposed to be drifting right now? So, uh, and I called the people that were involved in the previous events as sponsors because, you know, they kind of started all this and helped it, thank them for that.

So, and then after the three hours, then that’s when the excitement obviously started, you know, because, During that time up till the event we had connected with a guy hanging out the window in the old F 10, right? There’s now a guy, his name was Matt Buds, and a guy called Matt Mars was driving that fuel car hanging out the window to connect.

You have to turn it half [00:19:00] a turn to lock it in. Then the fuel pump has to go on to transfer the fuel into the uh, to my acceler tank and then have to dis. But we come to find out in our practice that when I am doing that to connect, I have to left foot brake and I have to then increase the RPMs to keep the angle that makes the engine because there’s no air coming in.

Right? So it’s very hard on the whole drive, train, and engine. I had to look at, keep my eye on the oil temp and I knew when it was gonna go into lip mode. If that thing goes into lip mode being connected, it’s like taking your foot off the gas and it was gonna straighten up and met buds that’s hanging there.

You know, I mean, crushed. Yeah. He had, I don’t know what waiver he signed or what attorney signed off on this project back then and V of Love you say. Yeah, go ahead and do that. It’s not dangerous at all. No, for sure. So he was certainly the guy that was gonna be the meat and sandwich, right. So I had the authority to over.

Whenever there was enough fuel in the car and we had to disconnect, we did that five times throughout the process [00:20:00] where two times we were just about to connect and we were starting to increase the temperature. I figured we could only stay connected for maybe 10 seconds. It was not worth the risk. So then we would, in a sense, not hook up and I would kind of increase my speed again.

To cool down the engine to go for another refuel. And then at one point, I would say maybe six hours in, and the guy from Guinness, you know, he’s there counting laps, you know, he’s like, this is not, you know, I’m used to covering poor guy, counting eight hot dogs right in five minutes or something like that, or watermelons and, and so he’s like, okay.

So I get the radio call from the BMW person and said, you know, you can stop now if you want. We got the record. I said, you know what, I’m out here for all eight hours. Sorry. You know, because we don’t know if this has gotta be another opportunity. So I want to put the test to somebody to go out and beat it.

So we stayed. For eight hours did the record and it also blew up. And now corporate obviously took it in and and really made a big deal out of it. I went to a [00:21:00] dealership not too long ago and they’re still playing the same video you probably watched Yeah. In the dealership. And everybody that gets recruited into BMW on the mechanical side when they go into training and come in the first time.

They showed that video to, for them to get excited about the band. So it’s kind of neat to be part of that. And again, it was started by that guy that raised his hand in that class and said, how, how long do you think you could drift for? So, yeah. And according to the video, you didn’t just beat the record.

You Nile in. We did. Yeah, we did. And that was my goal. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of folks know us. Through that in a Rooster Hall because of Johann. Question I get is, Johann, how in the world did you have to go to the bathroom? I know. Yeah. I get that. And I, I do, I get that all the time. That is, you know, that’s the one that’s on top of mind of everybody.

Right. And uh, so they’re little, you know, when they raise their hand and I just say just like the astronauts do it and then they can look it up on the internet. Now the [00:22:00] astronauts do it. And that’s how I did it. And I did that all on my own because my goal was to be out there if I eat hours and was eating, eating cookies and crackers.

Yeah, well I wasn’t, so my diet was obviously water to stay. And then I was eating what, uh, the bicyclist, you know, that does the Tour de France. Yeah. So it was not a non solid diet because the other one I wasn’t used by four.

But you have another record under your belt, and we talked about this on a previous drive through news episode, and it’s very fortunate that we’re here talking to you at v i r today because you hold the record for the fastest. In an ev, in the Tesla plaid. Mm-hmm. And we actually, again, we talked about this on a previous episode, and this was to take away the record from Porsche in the take hand.

We found out that you were the driver of that vehicle, and we want to talk to you about that experience. Sure. Which you think about driving the EVs, you know, the evolution as we call, or the EV [00:23:00] revolution, the future of racing with EVs, stuff like that. So let’s get your take on that hot lap here at vi.

But there was a super exciting project, Carmine, which is um, the guy that had the car and he’s got a shop here in North Carolina. Him and I got to be friends when I was doing some shock development for Olens, for their club racing, and we met each other. He had the bmw, I was just driving for Olens and then we just stayed connected.

Next thing you know, they put on the event here for, to set the, the record. And that was for the grand course? Yeah. So that is kind of like the. The right, uh, for, for the US car and driver is the one that comes in and does it all the time. So our goal was to go in and, and beat the Porsche record that had carbon breaks, right?

That had really cool suspension. I believe they have a two speed, uh, transmission as well, so they can really work in the right torque range. And it was kind of a last minute deal. We didn’t really have any. If we had 300 tread wear tires. So not nothing. Not even 200. Not even [00:24:00] 200. You did modify the brakes on the car though, right?

They, yeah, they pads. Okay. No, no, no. The calibers. Yeah. Not the calibers, but the rotors. Rotors, okay. And, but that does come on, Tesla does off offer a, uh, carbon. Uh, option. But other than that, the vehicle was stock, completely stock. Wow. Yeah, completely stock. Really the only electrical vehicle I had driven was somebody I had instructed that got a Tesla, the non plat, this is maybe five years ago.

He’s like, I want you to drive it. I want you to feel the acceleration. And I remember I punched out, he put it in ludicrous mode. I punched it, and I really, I like was taken back. The acceleration was amazing. Right. Have you all been in a ludi? Yeah, there’s not, now it is need to, it is life changing. Yeah.

Yeah. It’s like being in a top shell drag. Yeah. Yeah. And if you don’t put your head back, it’ll put it back for you. Oh, it’ll put it back. Right. I’m like kind of excited about it, but also a little bit nervous. Am I gonna get that sensation out here at the track? Especially with a thousand horsepower. On this plaid, go out and run it kind of, you [00:25:00] know, 5,000 pounds.

I can feel. It’s heavy. The brakes are working pretty good, but I am also feeling the pedal getting a little long because they’re generating some serious heat. And this is a dual motor Tesla. Right? So four wheel drive, basically. Yeah. I believe that has. Actually three motors. It has one for the front axle and two in the rear, one for each rear tire acting as a diff basically.

Correct. Yeah. Yep. And I mean, when I heard a thousand horsepower, right, I mean, it, it, that’s a, that’s a drag racer that sits there lops on the cam, right? Yeah. That has that kind of horsepower. Go out, kind of get used to it. I mean, I was amazed. 5,000 pounds, you know, it did very well. I got on the curbs suspension, absorbed that very well to, you know, kind of known, trying to see what ideal line.

Again, our goal was to beat the record, kind of get an idea about fuel consumption, reading the display for when I have the power and when I’m overheating the battery. The conclusion was I basically had one. Lap with full power, and then it starts [00:26:00] going into where the battery heats up and all that. I still have amazing speed, but I will not be able to go faster.

So it’s everything you got on one lap. And then we had laid out logistically to go and charge the batteries in, uh, south Boston. There’s a supercharger there. So in between sessions, Boogie did there, sat there, you know, 40 minute, charged the thing up, got back again, set ourselves up, you know, slow lap out, get some heat in the tires, and then one hot lap, and then cool it down, and then back to the, so I basically had a total of five laps throughout that day.

Long day for five laps, long day. But it was fun, right? The whole logistic laps. Yeah. The whole logistical component of it, of going to South Boston, be back in time when we were up again and all that was really fun. And if you see the video, I think it’s turn nine. No, it’s up through the Ss. Up to the S.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. He gets sideways. And his steering wheel is almost like full lock. And he comes back and this car doesn’t have any arrow. [00:27:00] Well, and that’s the funny part about when we reviewed the article, when it came out and everything, my um, my sister who’s one of the other hosts on the drive-through, she goes, did you see the part of the video where he almost bends it?

I know. And so the cool thing about this whole thing is the lap before I, I did the faster. I’d already beaten the record, so I had that. So I’m like, you know what, I’m gonna try to send it up through the S, send it and see what happens. And I obviously send it a little too hard and I’m remembering when I got locked to one side, I’m like, I’m not sure how this is.

Could be interesting. This could either go really viral or I’m gonna try to obviously keep it on track. And then it goes, the other, you know, basically creates a tank slapper, right? So when we look at the data from the other lap, I did lose about six or seven tens by that. But then I gained up elsewhere because I was still like determined what?

I caught it, I’m like, I still got it. Let’s see what we got and then beat it on a little bit further on [00:28:00] that lap. So that’s why that LAP made it right. And obviously the whole exciting part that everybody has been emailing and texting me about is when I’m sideways through the essays and I’m like, did you see I still hit my apexes even though I was sideways?

It comes from drifting the B bmw. Yeah. So that said, I’ve also coached some uh, H HPD folks with Teslas. I’ve driven one as. I came away from the car going, it handles like a nine 11. That’s what I kept thinking. So I’m wondering if your impression was the same and what your thoughts are of the handling of the Teslas and do they have a future in, let’s say, even amateur motorsports?

Yeah. You know, I think you know, a lot of manufacturers, I mean, I think the statement, the big statement is the gm right? What’s the, you know, in two or three years they’re got, their goal is to be all electrical. So the commitment is obviously there from the manufacturers as a purest, fortunate enough to drive that 40, uh, 9 44 that I drive an s e c in the TU class.

And you know, it sits there in idols and loops in the cam and doesn’t get [00:29:00] to life before 6,000 RPMs. Right. I think those days are slowly going away where the electrical is gonna take over, and you see it in Europe. They now have the TCE cars that are basically all there with electrical motors and going extremely fast, fast.

Formula E, formula E, you know, it will take, maybe sometime you see the, the two person drive, you know, where I think Hamilton owns a team and you know, they race out in the desert, right? Decar, right? Yeah, it’s, yeah. No, it’s not Decar. It’s, it’s a, it’s an. Off-road series. Yeah. Oh, I’m thinking about the Audi de cars, right?

Yeah. But I think that they also had an electrical vehicle that raced in the car, right? Mm-hmm. So it’s interesting that the ones that made the, uh, the name for the diesels, right, which was Audi vw, and then they got a little trouble then, then they immediately went to the EV route. They got in a little bit of trouble.

Yeah, right. A little bit of trouble. As a matter of fact, there’s a great story behind that. Yeah. When, when you guys have a chance. Our [00:30:00] car was sponsored by West Virginia University for two years. Dr. Scott Wayne is the head of the Formula SAE department. Each year, two students would come onto our team and be integrated and we’d find them jobs in motor sports integrated for the team throughout the season.

Yeah, and it was a great program. It was. Well, he was the one that found it out. Yeah. And I got the whole story directly from him. Yeah. That’s where Diesel gate starts. Where’s where it started? That’s where it started. And he started to prove how good clean Diesel was, and it kind of backfired. Anyway. Yeah.

Story, story for another episode. That’s right. It is. It’s certainly a story. And maybe he even wants to tell about this story. So let’s, let’s touch on one thing, Johann. So the biggest drawback to the EVs right now is probably the weight, right? Weight and range. I mean, yeah. And range. And I think the other thing I hear from a lot of people to your kind of underlying point about your 9 44 et cetera, is there’s no sound.

Yeah. You don’t get that loping, you don’t get that acceleration, that buildup. It’s [00:31:00] just power and plateau, right. The, the kind of the EV way right now. Are you sold yet? I mean, uh, you know, I, I would, and I’ve been thinking about this especially, so I go to Denmark once a year and race in the street was Copenhagen and they had the electrical touring cars over there.

And I’m like, if there ever is an opportunity where that comes over here, I will try to see if I can’t get to drive one of those cars and be involved in that series, because I think there’s such a push from the manufacturers to go that route that you would have big support for that. You may have the hybrid version of racing, which is in a lot of forms now.

I mean, formula one s. In many respects, hybrid. You look at Lamont’s too wc, right? Yes. Yeah. Right. So you know what? So that it’s, we’ll, we’ll go that route likely first. Yeah. Before we’ll go all ev, because you don’t wanna see a car lightning fast in the beginning of the race and substantially slower at the end.

So then you get into the conversation of balance of power too. Right? How do you put that take hand against a Corvette? Right? It just, it doesn’t work right now. It doesn’t. [00:32:00] And what’s interesting is what I was impressed, I mean the little whining and all that kind of was, it was pretty cool to be inside that whining and just here in the air.

But then I, uh, somebody took a video of the car coming by on the outside and all you hear is that wind moving. And I thought that was actually a pretty cool sound because you don’t normally hear that because it’s overwhelmed by at the engine, at the beginning of that video. Yeah. He comes by all you hear is this.

Whoosh. It looks like the car’s in fast motion, like they sped up the film but they didn’t. Yeah, it’s that blasted fast. We were going, I think 155 or something like going into turn two. I turned one. Right, right. Wow. They can fly. And then to that point, I think Tesla tried to start an electric series, so they were looking for drivers a couple years ago to start an electric series.

I don’t know if anything ever happened with that, but I know Jaguar made like a really sharp looking SUV that they were gonna race a support series in conjunction with Formula E. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know how that. What’s perceived or not. Yeah. I don’t know. Yeah. But [00:33:00] moving on a little bit, you guys earlier joked that you have a combined experience of 114 years racing between the two of you?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. 114 years of Of life. Of life. Oh, of age of racing. 114 years of age between, right, right, right. So outside of Amy, Todd is 85. Todd is 85. So what we think we’re not sure. Just kind of putting two and two together. We think we may have that label here at the track and get another record.

Yes. Right. The oldest two drivers combined the oldest, uh, in sro SRO in the United States. Right. So let’s talk about SRO and your experiences here. Just to what drew you to to race with sro? Why should more people look to join the SRO series? First of all, it’s sprint racing, and that’s what the SR stands for.

No, no organization. It’s Stefan Rotel. Well, first of all, that’s where I cut my teeth without question. In BMW club racing, [00:34:00] we’ve had hour and a half races, but they’re normally 25 to 40 minutes. Let me tell you, that’s enough to wear you. Okay. But I believe from a fan’s point of view, it’s much better to watch a 40 minute race or maybe an hour as opposed to a four hour race.

You lose your, um, attention a bit. I know I’m a giant motor motor sports fan. I’m famous for falling asleep in the middle of a NASCAR race and waking up either right before or right after it ended. I think the sprint side of things is very attractive to me and to the watching audience or listening audience perhaps.

You know, also, because you know there are two professional sports car series in the in the us right? There’s SRO and there’s imsa. And if you want to go into pro racing, there is one of those two to pick from. And SRO is catering a little more to make it, you know, if you can call it more cost effective.

There is obviously no such thing as cheap racing, right? But it is a little more cost effective than to run EMSA [00:35:00] because of there’s no fuel stops. But they still have the component of the endurance, but making a, a shorter race. So that’s why I, Todd and I racing. On a team together we are two driver team, but we don’t have to have all the fuel rigs, the manpower to fuel, the manpower, to change tires and all that.

So the cost is obviously not there, but the excitement of being two drivers in a car is there. Playing at a, in a field where all the cars is by definition, should be equal, right? That’s what makes it appealing. You know, it’s hard to find that anywhere else. If you want to go longer races, then mtel obviously would be, and when we started it, we started in touring car.

Yeah. In TC and the uh, BMW M 2 35, which became the M two 40 ir our Stand for Racing Factory race car. There was a place for that here and there wasn’t a place for it many other places. And that I thought that was the best car for the money in the world because you know, my club race car, [00:36:00] I’ve got a lot more.

In that then I would have in the TC car, and it’s a 20 year old car. You pile money into these things. That’s what that’s for. The, and then also the professional component, which the coverage of it. So that obviously, uh, gave us some leverage and the exposure from West Virginia and exposing the team to the pro side because you know, you go here and look in the paddock, right?

I mean, people are up on scales. The wheels are off. You see the string are on there. So, It, it really becomes competitive, not just on the track, but also in the garage. Right? And when we got that competitive DNA in us, Hey, can we play at this field and let’s see how I don’t like to lose it. Put putt.

Exactly. Yeah. You know, That’s exactly, and and to your point, I know joking, you were in the paddock, IMSA is referred to as in air quotes, the other series. Sure. But you know, there’s a lot of fanfare and a lot of pomp and circumstance when you go over there and it’s, you know, they draw huge crowds. Mm-hmm.

A lot of it’s backed by, let’s say, NASCAR and other places. It’s owned by [00:37:00] nascar. Yeah. Based on the tracks they go to, et cetera. But you come here and you. You quickly remember what racing is all about. Mm-hmm. Right. It’s a little bit more grassroots but not grassroots. Right, exactly. It’s a beautiful blend of the two and, and it’s enjoyable to watch you guys out there running together.

The multi-class racing for me is fantastic. I’ve always enjoyed, that’s what draws me to w e C and M, so, and everything. Mm-hmm. So, again, congratulations and I’m a big IMSA fan. Yeah. Yeah. I am. You know, I was, I was going to run this next January in an LMP three car. I was given great advice, Todd, if you’re going to do this, stop your sports car racing six months before and just do the LMP three because the down force cars, it, it’s completely different mindset to relearn.

Yeah. The faster you go, the more stick you have. And I did two test sessions with the LMP three. I spent five times here. And it road Atlanta when I was going around slow turns Because you think it would have stick and it doesn’t, now it’s mechanical grip. Yeah. You know, [00:38:00] now it’s back to where it was bef with a, with a normal car.

Whereas in the fast corners now you have the arrow grip. So it’s that transition back and forth. So we, we decided to do this and we. We’re talking about it. We may do the, the series just the day before the 24 down there at Daytona next year with the car that we have here. Yeah. Made the Michel entire challenge.

Yeah. Is that the roar before the 24 or? No, it’s the mis michel entire challenge. Oh yeah. Yeah. And actually, I think that’s a great segue into talking about the future of Rooster Hall racing. So what does the next couple of years look like for. That’s a great question. Uh, I just retired from my real job, if you will.

I owned an investment firm for a number of years, and Todd was very good at it. So he could retire early. Yeah. At 85 years old, right? Yeah. That’s the only way we do that math. So it’s, it is an expensive sport. At a certain point, you’ve gotta [00:39:00] treat it as a business, and if you can’t make money, Not lose a lot.

You might have to hang it up. There’s a whole lot of teams that have come and gone, but we had to take a year off during Covid cuz we didn’t have sponsorship. Now we got sponsorship with Colin and his team and some stuff that we’ve got. Because I mean, it costs, and I’ll, I’ll say it pretty openly. It costs about a quarter of a million dollars to run that TC car a year.

I’ve done pretty well on life, but I just can’t afford to spend a quarter of a million dollars every year on letting somebody else drive my car, and it’s about that same amount in my car. There’s a half a million dollars. These teams that have these GT three cars, there’s some deep pockets somewhere because you know, there’s a million dollars a pop, a car, or more in some cases.

So this is a very expensive sport and it’s gotta be treated as a business. And I think my goal is to do this until I’m 70 for 10 more years, [00:40:00] and then we’ll see where it goes from there. You have to have goals in life, and that’s what drives. You know, again, I’m 60 in a few months starting my professional racing career now.

Holy crap, that’s l that’s late in life now. I’ve had a personal trainer for 12 years just for racing. She comes to my house, I have a gym in my home. She comes to my house and I used to go to Gold’s Gym. When I retired. I put a gym in my house and she works my. Now, could I eat a little bit better? We all could, but I’m in pretty darn good shape for my age.

You have to, to stay up with these 20 some year olds. Again, our reflexes get a little slower. Our muscle reaction gets a little slower. I wanna race for at least five more years, and I wouldn’t mind 10 years, and then we’ll see where it goes from there. We had three cars, by the way, in 2019. And then one of our drivers had a very bad accident in a club race and had to, uh, retire from racing.

So we went down to two. We now have two. [00:41:00] I see us with three cars in the future, maybe four. But I will tell you at a certain level, it’s managing people. Mm-hmm. And you’re not racing anymore, you’re managing people and you gotta make a decision. Do you want to be a manager of people or do you want to go race?

There’s that balance there too. And how much money do am I willing to put it into the business outta my pocket? That sponsorship may not cover. That’s a tough one. It is on that side of things, you know with with Todd with four cars. When we were three cars, Todd wasn’t racing. I was driving for Todd in the tc, so I was managing people.

Yep. Now Todd obviously wants to race, right? And you can’t be thinking about managing people when you are out there driving. If, if Todd needs to have fun, right? Otherwise it’s not fun. So, so think about this. We’ve got 30 or 40 people out here because Colin Garrett, our TC driver, TCX driver, lives 15 minutes away and he’s backed by this military [00:42:00] community and he’s all involved with that.

And there’s a bunch of military owned companies that are here represented by several people. So you have 30, 40 people out there, so you’re running a team, you’re enter. You’re trying to get enough liquids in you and you’re driving and one person can only do, but so much. My wife, and this is very important, my wife couldn’t make it this weekend.

She had some health issues she’s dealing with. She technically owns the team and without her, there’s no way I could do it without Michelle. She’s integral and I will tell you. There’s no big secret that Karen Johann’s wife is a big secret to his success. Yeah. That woman behind a man. Yeah. I mean, and you know, my wife is one of the few that come to the track.

Every race club race. Pro race, whatever. When she’s not there, everybody says, where’s Michelle? So I count my blessings. I’m incredibly blessed to have a wife that not only accepts what I do, but helps be [00:43:00] part of this and. She owns Rooster Hall Race. Yeah. On any records in your future that you wanna break.

That’s funny you should ask because, uh, somebody contact me, me about combining my drifting and the EV side of things, you know, because that’s also held by Porsche. So, uh, it would be fun to do. So, uh, we are working a little bit on doing that and finding the facility for. Which we have now is just, uh, putting it all together.

So you might see an ev drifting record here, not within, you know, too, too long. I would ask you, Johan, what his opinion is of force, but I think we know. Yeah, I think we’ll know the answer to that. What is, what your opinion is of. Porsche, but I think we know, well actually I drive one. I love Porsches, but I also love to too.

I have a Porsche. Yeah. So, yeah. So yeah. Well that said, let’s get your thoughts on the reveal of the new B M W. Are you guys gonna be upgrading vehicles next year? Now that we’ve seen the, like the first time of e I r likely. I’ve been given advice to get two or three of ’em, [00:44:00] but a couple hundred thousand dollars a pop, you know, that is not probably in the cards for that.

What’s the biggest draw do you think? Switching to the new car? Early on the ac? Well, yeah, maybe we, we talked about that in at length. Actually, we are behind the curve this year because we just got the car and we just took it to track immediately. And it’s taken us the third race weekend to figure it out.

So obviously when you get a car and you get, get it ahead of time and you get a chance to, you know, work out the bugs and figure out what it likes. And that’s really the key. What is the car like? Does it like more camber? Does it like more tow? Does it like more cross? You know what spring set up, spring set up, shot, spring, all that, you know?

Yeah. And the car is, in my opinion, Somewhere between this car that we have now, the M four G T four, and the now M four G T three, it’s [00:45:00] somewhere in the middle of there. It’s more of a race car. It appears to be more safe, which is even better, even has a, a hatch in the roof to extract somebody in case of emergency.

I think that’s important. Yes. And there’s also some. In geometry settings you can do with shins now, which makes it a lot more efficient for our type of racing. Johann’s substantially taller than me, so we have to pull the seat. The seat stays stationary in the GT four. The pedal box moves forward and, and back on the new one.

They have stops that you can put at different area. So we put it full to the stop on the front for Johann and full to the back wherever I want my stop to be. So it’s boom boom. And now we have to write, we have to take white chalk and write, put lines in there and I gotta kind of pull it back to that and, you know, so this would be a lot easier.

I smirked when I heard about that particular feature because I, I thought about it and I said, go-karts have. For as long as I can know. Remember the whole pedal [00:46:00] box, right. It’s exactly. So that has the same, but it’s a little uh, way you can just use some stops with it. I think it’s a good looking car. I’m not a big fan of big grills on BMWs, but I think they did a big, they’re growing on me by the way.

Yeah. Yeah. I thought they were incredibly distinct. I think it’s deliveries that help when you see them in just plain dress. You’re just like, well, well, lemme tell you. I just ordered a 2022 m. Competition extra I last week, so in black, no, no, no. In in Dra Gray, which is the coolest color in the world. Yeah.

But it’s got the big grill. It’s a darker car, which kind of mutes it a little bit. But when I first saw that grill, I thought it looked hideous. Somehow. It’s growing on me. I think the GT three probably has helped. No, it, it’s, it’s, I can’t say completely attractive, but it’s really grown on me. Me too. Oh, and this car, this new race car is an automatic transmission, whereas the race car we have now is a dual clutch.

So they’re going backwards in some respects, [00:47:00] but they say it shifts faster than the dual clutch does, which is hard to imagine. Well, this also shows you how far automatic transmissions have come, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, when they’re shifting that creek and the durability and there’s list, you know, uh, mechanical components in there.

So it makes it extremely durable that the two 40 was also an automatic trans transmission that made into a paddle shift. And remember how durable that is? This is a straight six. Three liter with 550 horsepower. Yeah. And I believe they said for tuning wise, uh, they’re making changes on the fly. It can all be done, you know, connecting laptops or any of that.

You can do it in the pitch, not while you’re driving, but yes. Yeah, yeah, of course. But you do it right there from inside the car and it’s. Which is pretty and traction control too. So Todd, he told me about the new M four uh, xDrive that you bought and I’m super excited. I can’t wait to drive it, but when he makes the phone call to me and says, Hey, I just bought a new GT four M four, we’ve gotta drive it next year, then I’m gonna be really excited.

So on that note, any shout [00:48:00] outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t? Far. Number one, my wife. Without her, I wouldn’t be here. Without her support, we wouldn’t be here. I’m sorry she couldn’t make it this weekend, but dag on it. She’s a big part of this. And to all our supporters who follow us, my daughter, I haven’t talked about her too much.

She’s out in San Diego. She’s getting into the sport now at age 29. Looking very much forward to that. My personal selfish goal is that I can be on the track with my son and my daughter at the same time. Unfortunately, I lost my oldest daughter 13 years ago and she’ll never be replaced. My daughter is a, she’s got 20,000 followers on Instagram cuz she’s a bodybuilder.

She was nationally ranked in a great soccer. And I think because she’s so coordinated and she’s an athlete, she’ll fit really well into this racing. I’ll tell you, it’s true. You have to be an athlete and you have to be coordinated to do this. You don’t see uncoordinated people do this. We [00:49:00] emphasize all the time that sports is a real thing in motor sports.

It, it’s not just driving around. I played college soccer. I know what sport is at the highest level. My daughter played for West Virginia University, top 10 in the country. Athletics or athletics. This. Is a workout and at the end of the half an hour run, when you’re giving it 100%, you get out of that car.

Exhausted. Exhausted, yeah. Oh, cock pick. We saw, you know, it’s 132 degrees. We sit with a helmet and a suit on. It’s certainly so lot of pressure. Yeah. And, and the and the air conditioner only works when we put the brakes on. Yeah. Have you tried to use the brakes as little as possible? Right? Yeah. Because what’s that?

They do slow down to slow you. Yeah, for me it’s uh, kind of what, uh, want to just say what Todd said. You know, I have the family support and obviously I’m here because of Todd and the partnership that we have established since 2018 and friendship and yeah, absolutely. We have a great friendship. Yeah. And, uh, while you were talking, I realized your background is kind of like the same, how you got [00:50:00] involved, it was all self propelled.

Mm-hmm. Right. We didn’t have a parent that she took you to Lamar, but you remember the cars, they were parked in the street. I reremember, I could recognize all the cars and between five And you were driven by it. Yeah. And throughout life for me and for Todd, it sounds like we have been driven by that. It was always a priority that we saw.

As you know, when I went to college, I think I may have gone to two parties because I was always. Find out where’s the race, where can I go? Mm-hmm. Where can I meet people and stuff like that. So I’m very fortunate and I hope we will, uh, do it some more. You either have a car gene or you don’t. Yeah. You guys obviously do.

Yeah, we do. And most of our close friends do because of this wonderful sport. We’re, yeah, we’re involved with. Owner Todd Brown began Rooster Hall Racing as a way to enhance his hobby. Today, rooster Hall offers customer support, transportation, and car building from club level to pro level racing. Rooster Hall has had multiple national championships in club racing and three successful pro seasons from 2017 through [00:51:00] 2019 with driver Johann Schwartz bringing home the s r o Champ.

And to learn more about Rooster Hall Racing, be sure to log on to www.roosterhallracing.com or follow them on social at Rooster Hall Racing on Facebook and at Rooster Hall on Instagram. I cannot thank both of you enough for coming on the show, sharing your stories, getting people to know Rooster Hall racing a little bit more intimately and a little bit more internally.

We look forward to seeing what happens this year and next year. If you guys. Car and best of luck. Thank you. Throughout the weekend, throughout this season. You’ve got a new follower and a new fan and me, I, I’m, I’m all on board for Rooster. Thank you. Well, absolutely. We’re, we’re hopefully gonna be on the podium after, in about an hour and a half an hour.

Absolutely. Thank you guys. I enjoyed a lot.

The following episode is brought to you by S r o Motorsports America and their partners at a w s CrowdStrike, Fantech [00:52:00] Pelli, and the Skip Barber Racing School. Be sure to follow all the racing action by visiting www.sromotorsports.com. Or take a shortcut to Gtam america.us and be sure to follow them on social at Gt underscore America on Twitter and Instagram at SRO Gtam America on Facebook and catch live coverage of the races on their YouTube channel at GT World.

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We’d love to hear. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no [00:53:00] annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

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