The Mud, and the Blood, and the Beer

Garrett Walls - CHAZ's Used Auto Parts

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Contact: Garrett Walls at chazgarrett99@hotmail.com | 410-876-7815 | Visit Online!

     

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[00:00:00] Grand Touring Motorsports started as a social group of car enthusiasts, but we’ve expanded into all sorts of motorsports disciplines, and we want to share our stories with you. Years of racing, wrenching, and motorsports experience brings together a top notch collection of knowledge and information through our podcast, Brake Fix.

Hey everyone, Crew Chief Eric here, and with me today filling in for Brad is Mountain Man Dan. And in this episode of Brake Fix, we’re going to be speaking with Garrett Walls, who some of you may recognize from Chazz’s Used Auto Parts, and also happens to be a GTM sponsor, winning our Sponsor of the Year award back in 2018.

We’re probably not going to talk too much about used parts or the yard, but instead we plan to dive into a conversation about the world of dirt track racing. And with that, welcome to the show, Garrett. Thanks. I’m glad to be here. Before we jump into dirt track racing, why don’t you tell us a little bit about the family business, the history of Chaz’s.

My great [00:01:00] grandfather had business. We’ve had it for generations and generations. We’ve pretty much since like Worson Muggy, really. Like the fire field in World War II. They used like fly planes in and then they would fuel them up and they’d go either cross the ocean or jump on the carrier. Then I guess like the 50s or 60s it got switched over to Salvage Yard.

I think it was Fair Brothers first and then it ran over to Martel’s and then I want to say like 83 or 84 my grandfather bought it and then from. 83, 84 to 95. My father ran it, but it just wasn’t under his name. And then 95, he finally bought it from my father. So my father started 25 years ago. July 1st was the 25th anniversary.

That was just a couple of days ago. He bought it off of my grandfather when it was Martel’s. Now it’s Chaz’s. Like I said, his whole life. And I’ve done it my whole life. So I really don’t see myself going anywhere. Yeah, I’m kind of stuck here. Prior to Chaz’s ever becoming a sponsor for us, I had a fairly decent history of coming up to their yard and [00:02:00] pulling parts.

Chaz’s is a new pull yard, it’s not one where you have to have them pull, although they do have a side that pulls parts for you. Their yard’s one of the nicer yards, in my opinion, in this area because they keep it fairly well organized. It’s not full of mud holes and everything you have to walk through going out to the cars.

And the prices have always been good. I think the one question everybody wants to know is Chaz Short for something. Yeah. Charles. Yeah. That’s his first name. Oh, very cool. Which actually leads us into our next part of the conversation. When did you actually start dirt track racing? In 2013 is when I started driving late model.

2012 I ran good car for half a season. And then 2013. Switched over to ride a late model for a full season. I ran until about 2016 or 2017. And then I took a break for like 3, 4 years. And then finally jumped back in. It was going to be full time this year, but now the current virus has kind of got everything messed up.

So this hasn’t even been a full season either. I hear that congratulations are in order. You won your [00:03:00] first race. Yeah, very first. I haven’t even won qualifying either, or I haven’t topped one time trials either. I’ve, this is the first ever win, in general. I mean besides go karts. Go karts, I won when I was doing it up in Susquehanna Speedway.

I won my first race in go karts, very first race that I ran and then didn’t win after that. So what would you say compelled you to get into the sport? What, what drove you to it? Uh, my dad’s been doing it his whole life, my whole life. So it’s kind of just, it’s a family thing. My whole family’s done it. I mean, he started it.

06, 08, something like that, I mean, a while ago. So he ran Thundercars first. Between him, my Uncle Mike, they were back and forth every weekend, first and second. And being there, seeing that, you know, it was just really nice. Afterwards, then late models started becoming kind of bigger and bigger. So he jumped up into late models, 358 stuff for a little bit.

And then when I got 13, he’s like, You know, hey, we’re gonna go ahead and get you a car. So I jumped into 358. I think it was either that year or the next year. He jumped into doing super late models like 400 cubic inch stuff [00:04:00] Like they run like lucas oil or outlaws He jumped into doing that for like a year or two kind of pulled out the competition wasn’t really as nice as it was In 358.

It’s not really I don’t know how to say the 358 stuff’s just more fun It’s just more fun to run in than the Super League stuff, in his eyes anyway. Which I can see that, we’ve known more people in the 358 stuff, and it’s like a family. You know, racing is like a family too, so, you know how it is.

Thunder cars, late models, super late, 358, 400, and on top of that, I’ll probably throw in outlaws. So can you explain the difference between all of them? As far as late model goes, you have super late model, 358 late model, and crate late model. Crate late model is just like a 604 crate. It’s like 400 horsepower, 450 horsepower with a crate motor in it.

Most time GM 604s. And for those that don’t understand, 604 is the cubic inch size of the engine. And what’s the difference between a late model and a super late? What makes, what makes the difference there? Is it [00:05:00] the year of the engine or something else? So the, uh, late model, or limited late model, or 358 late model, like late model sports, another thing we call them, they just have a 358 motor, it’s basically a 350 Chevy, or, I don’t know what kind of Ford motor they use for them, but they’re just, like, their, their limit is 358 cubic inch, some of them are like 360 cubic inch, so you can run a Dodge motor, most of it just Chevy, 350s that are bored out, super late model, they are kind of loose on their, uh, cubic inch size, because some people run all the way up to a 440.

And then some people don’t run anything over 400, but they’re all aluminum where the 358 stuff’s all steel. Steel head, steel block, and then the superlates all aluminum. So for the, for the folks listening, I mean, if you, if you googled world of outlaws cars, it’s kind of the traditional dirt track car.

They’re kind of a cigarette car or they look like a shoe, big giant wing on top, you know, the kind of the classic dirt racer, but these late model cars you’re talking about, they’re actually two frame chassis cars. And in your case, they kind of look like, I hate to say this, an 80s Camaro. They have that sort of wedge shape to [00:06:00] them.

Go to Google and look up, look up like, World of Outlaws Late Models or Lucas Oil Late Models, and you’ll see what they look like. World of Outlaws, that’s a big organization that runs, kind of like how NASCAR is, but for late models, obviously. Between them, And Lucas Oil, they’re both more than the same, separate brands, but they do the same thing.

But what about the Thundercars? What do they look like? Thundercars were basically just anything taken off the road, really. Like a, um, like a rear wheel drive, big body car taken off the road, old Crown Vic kit. Most of it was really just, you know, Like a third gen Camaro or box body Mustang or, you know, something like that thrown together with like a Chevy 350 or a Ford 5 0, you know, something like that.

They were just kind of thrown in the car and rolled with. Because obviously you’re running in basically a spec class. What kind of horsepower are those cars putting down? The 358s are about 550, 600 around there. So it’s not a lot, but it’s not a little bit either. How much do they weigh in at? 2, 300 pounds to 2, 500.

Depends what, it also depends on the track, because [00:07:00] some tracks are, you’re allowed 22, 50 some tracks, you’re allowed 2350. I think my home track is 2300. You’re allowed is your lightest. Uh, and then the heaviest you can be is like 25 or 25 50. That weight, is that after you come in after a race with depleted fuel, or is that weight before you start the race with a full tank?

That’s after the race de plate of fuel. And whatever mud you have on the car, you know, sometimes you can pick up 20 pound of mud and actually be 10 pounds light and still pass tech because you picked up 20 pounds of mud. Obviously you go to impound after the race is over. They look over the car, you know, it sounds very similar to some of the club racing and regionals and things like that.

We’ve heard a similar story from guys with, you know, formula cars and spec cars. They’re brought to impound or, you know, they’re looked over. If somebody’s suspected of cheating, they’re probably torn down. Is the same true in dirt track? I mean, they still have like a great, you might’ve rolled over the scale at 22, nine instead of 2300.

If the car seems like it’s all fine, you know, there’s nothing like out of whack enough, they’ll, they’ll let you roll. Most tracks, most tracks around here, a lot of your smaller tracks like that. Now, [00:08:00] if you run in a big show, if you’re like one pound light there, you’re, you’re disqualified as far as tech and motors and stuff, it’s really only if.

Somebody kind of calls you or if they suspect they have a high suspicion of you cheating that’ll protect your motor Somebody can call you out and kind of put money on it as you’re cheating So what happens if they protest and they lose do you get that money? I’m not 100 sure how that works I know I thought now it used to be was if somebody put a thousand dollars down said you’re cheating and you were cheating then They kept the money and then if you weren’t cheating then You got their money.

It’s how it used to be. I don’t like gambling, I guess. What’s the safety equipment like? Fire suit, fire shoes, helmet on device. Just now they started to require fire suppression systems. They have like little heat elements in them that detect a certain temperature. One runs in the cab. The other one runs the fuel tank.

I think if one of them goes off, they both go off, but I’m not too sure. Then obviously just tube chassis, their crowbars and all that stuff. Do you guys run carburetors or EFI? Bye. Carburetors. [00:09:00] Everything’s carburetors. Even the super stuff is carburetors. Because the big thing, they’re not running gasoline.

No, we run alcohol. We run alcohol. Vodka, gin, what are we talking about? Whatever you want. Whatever makes it go fast. Pure green. Yeah, we’re up in the mountains. Making champagne, huh? Good figure. A drum of alcohol is about 300 bucks. So you go through one of those. I think it took us like two races to go through a drum of alcohol.

Wow. But that was with a full tank. Yeah. So we had 25 gallons in the tank and then 55 in the drum. Let’s talk about the driving experience. What’s it like being out on track? Definitely different. I mean, it’s, you guys know how it is too. It’s just a rush, but especially when you’re starting with like 20 other cars.

And if you’re mid pack, even if you’re, if you’re up front, my, my feature race, my final race, it was only six cars and it was still just like a rush. It’s always an adrenaline rush. You guys know how it is. It might be a little bit different. You know, between Red Horse and here, because you guys don’t normally run into each other.

Where in Dirt Track, you [00:10:00] use each other to get faster running into each other. You use each other as a barricade or a guardrail, you know. The whole term, Rubbage Racing, Rubbage Racing. That’s, that’s, that’s Right, right. It’s not the same as, like, hit to pass, right? The, the bumping and the grinding is because guys are sliding all over the place, because of the distraction and stuff like that.

Contact is not required. It’s the inevitable conclusion there. Yeah, it just happens. You and a bunch of guys get on the corner at 100, 120 mile an hour. Normally we estimate like 120 mile an hour on straightaway, which you run as your top speed. So when you enter the corner, you’re probably doing 100, 90, 100 mile an hour.

And depending if you’re on the top or the bottom, that also depends on your speed. You can get all the way down to 60, 70 mile an hour. where you can be still probably floating like the 90 mile an hour range around the top side. There’s multiple lanes to a track, like as far as road course goes, or even just oval, it’s kind of like a one lane track.

But as far as dirt racing, you can have a one lane track, you’d have a three lane track, you could be able to fit four cars on some tracks, depends on the track conditions, the weather, if it rained, if it rained five minutes before you went out, or if it rained. [00:11:00] Five hours before you go out, you know, that changes everything.

They got a special, like dirt track Zamboni that comes out to smooth it out for you guys, or it is what it is. Well, they’re supposed to kind of hard to smooth them out. It’s not asphalt. It’s not just smooth, you know, and there’s potholes and stuff and asphalt, but dirt is just hard to work with and like sprinklers and stuff.

They’ll, they’ll run up a track like crazy because they’ve eaten so much. They don’t weigh anything, spin around. Like you get some small tire cars, something like, they call them scramble cars. That’s like your front wheel drive stuff off the road, you know, Neons, Cobalt, stuff like that. Them small tires will tear up a track too.

You know, we run like 28 inch wide tires, 29 inch wide tires. They kind of float over the dirt. Whereas some of that other stuff kind of digs in, they don’t create rust, create burn. You don’t have anybody maintaining the track because you’ve got to kind of cut the track up in order to get the moisture down in there.

That way the dirt will pack. Like the ideal track to have is one that’s got enough moisture in it to where you can have traction. But still at the same time it’s not like it’s so muddy [00:12:00] that your car is just kind of stuck and locked down You know like haggardstown a lot of times get real slick acts like ice Is the more ideal condition for it to be dry?

Dirt or do you prefer it just after it rains? And I mean we’re talking about dirt here, but realistically it’s Probably more like clay, right? The problem with like a dry slick is just, you’ll slide around, the car doesn’t want to grab you and you have no traction. Like I said, I like it when it’s not like soaked wet or muddy, but it’s actually got some, you know, like a little bit of moisture to it so you can still get some traction.

But when it’s dry slick, you come out of the corner and you’re just spinning wheels. To jump back to the track for a minute, it’s always oval. There’s no road course version on dirt that you run. It’s always oval. So speaking of tires, describe the tires to us. Cause you know, in our world, you know, a lot of guys will start out on a ultra high performance summer tire, and then they graduate to some sort of what we call an R compound or a race compound.

And then eventually you work your way up to slicks and that’s great for asphalt, maximum grip, maximum [00:13:00] speed, but in the dirt, what are your tires like? Most of the time they are, uh, they’re like 28 and a half inch wide. We run all the way around, except for the right rear. That’s 29 inch wide. That’s actually like a softer tire.

Like they make it out of some sort of special rubber than the other three. We don’t run different compounds, 1300 all the way up to like 1600 compound just determines the softness. So like a 1300 is softer than say like a 1400 most time. We don’t ever really run anything over a 13 and a quarter or 1325.

The compounds go up. In quarters, so like 25 50 75, but yeah, we normally just stick to 113 and a quarter You use like a harder tire on a slipper track if you’re going like a 20 lap race If you’re not doing anything over 20 laps, you really stick to just a 1300 But that that also depends on track conditions if you have a Slick track that’s spitting up dust everywhere, then you’re going to want to run a 13 and a quarter when you’re right rear.

And if you’re doing a 20 lap race, you put 13 and a quarter on the left rear, uh, right front. Your left [00:14:00] front doesn’t touch the ground, so you normally just get 1, 300. Unlike us in the road work where we have our slicks, we have our rain tires. Their tires, they’ll actually cut the grooves in themselves. So they’re actually putting the tread pattern they designed, siping and things like that, to set it up for different conditions.

There’s different tread designs that they could cut into if they want a different type of grip. Is there a tread pattern that’s more ideal than another? Or does it really depend on the track and the conditions? Let’s say a, like a motorcycle tread versus a block tread, right? Or that way people can kind of relate to it.

What, what would be better? Most people just run like a regular block tread. I’ve seen people on the right. Front, they’ll run an angle, run like an angle tread. So they’ll go from one end of the tire to the other. There’s these little like extra casting lines from when they, when they make the mold and everything on the edge of the tires to run out at an angle on each end, and you kind of just draw the dots between them, two angles that line up from one end of the tire to the other, and then they’ll draw those out and make them to an angle tire for the right front, we did [00:15:00] that a while ago.

But it really, I didn’t notice a difference in it, because we run our right front block treads also. I haven’t noticed a difference yet, so. But there’s some people that swear up and down by it, and there’s some people that are just like, it doesn’t matter. Some people say the tread don’t matter at all, as long as you got threads.

Because our tires come, they come with a like, straight tread from the factory, from Hoosier. But as far as like, people’s ideas, you know, they want to do that, that’s, that’s on them. Whether they want to run straight across, or whether they want to run like an angle tread, or if they run angle, straight angle, some people do that.

It also depends on where you’re putting the tire. Most times, it’s normally just blocked. It’s easy, it works. A lot of guys that went to NASCAR started in dirt track, but realistically, the disciplines are similar in the sense that they both on an oval, but I think the driving style is completely different.

Would you agree? So like asphalt, the dirt driving style is way different. And even just, well, you obviously know what road course is also way different as well, but as far as asphalt, the dirt, that’s why you’re not sliding around. You got to be able to [00:16:00] handle the control, handle the car under a slide, whereas NASCAR or any, you know, asphalt oval, not going to say it’s any easier.

It’s more controlled. You know, NASCAR you have more control of. If you need to make a left or a right in the turn, you have enough room to do so. You have enough traction that you can kind of just jerk the wheel a little bit and move. Whereas dirt goes, if you’re mid slide and somebody spins out in front of you or two cars up, sometimes you don’t have anywhere to go but into them.

Your driving style’s gotta change. You gotta, you gotta change your distance for following. Following distance is really a big thing. You know, asphalt, you can be right up behind them. Dirt, sometimes even like five, ten car lengths at times, depending on what it is. I mentioned to Garrett previously, dirt track in a way is, it’s like the original drifting.

Because a lot of what they’re doing is drifting just on dirt. But now drifting’s a big thing. All these guys ride road courses and have their cars drifting around. Dirt track’s been doing that forever. So it’s uh taking, I think drifting in many ways can fare closer to dirt track than like NASCAR and road course.

Even [00:17:00] rally over in Europe, right? It’s the same thing. Anything that’s off road with a car, you know, not like, uh, off roading in trucks where they’re doing, you know, rock crawling and that kind of thing. But you know, it does conjure this image of, you know, Of, you know, Lightning McQueen, if you watch the first cars movie, where he’s like, you got to turn right to go left.

I would assume that the driving style is very much like that. Your throttle steering, your counter steering, you’re not just kind of chucking it in there and holding the line. Like not to, not to downplay the NASCAR guys, but they’re dealing with a lot of centrifugal forces because they’re going so fast, right?

They’re on a, on that large bowl, trying to maintain very high speeds versus, as you said, your highest speed, you know, 120 mile an hour, but you’re, you’re You’re going sideways on dirt, trying to maintain control at 90 mile an hour. That’s, that’s pretty impressive. You really do. I mean, the steering wheel is more to the right than it is any other way, but I mean, still the fastest way around track is as straight as you can get the steering wheel, especially in late models, because they have rear CRM basically take a four length drag set up.

and they shorten up the left side [00:18:00] bars on the gas the back of the car will pick up and it’ll pull the left side the left wheel and it’ll start to pull it you’ll see it go under not quite under the cockpit but it’ll be right behind the cockpit yeah if you look at any pictures of them when they’re turning or when they’re rolling you’ll see the left rear is kicked up real high And the wheels pulling under the body, you know, it helps rotate the car and set the car over.

And the biggest, the big thing about these cars is you have to let them rotate. The cars move a lot. You can feel the car pick up. Letting it rotate is just, is a really, really big part of it. Your driving style also will, will have to accommodate the car. Depending on the car, depending on the manufacturer, you know, and just little stuff like that.

Just depends on how the car feels. I mean, it even goes down to what kind of rear you have in the car changes your setup and what kind of shocks you have, what brand of shocks you have when the car changes your setup. It’s a lot of little things will change your setup. I mean, even just like an inch of stagger will make a difference.

My old car, my 06 Rocket, when you go into the corner, you would just slowly let off the gas, ease onto the brake, and then the car would start to rotate itself and set [00:19:00] up. You can pretty much just run it right out of the car. Like that didn’t, it didn’t matter where you were. That car just grabbed all the time.

Right. That’s probably the best car ever. So are they automatics or are they manuals? Paddle shifters? What do you got in there? They’re kind of like a power glide, like a direct drive. You have a low and high and then reverse. It’s a two stick trans. But other than that, I mean, they’re basically an automatic.

Basically, it’s basically just a one gear. You only use high. Here, uh, Dale and I hanging out and looking the car over up close and the transmission itself is a very different concept than what we’re used to because even though it’s technically an automatic, it does not have a torque converter and where the torque converter would sit at, there’s actually a pulley for a belt drive to come up.

To run a pump, which controls, I guess, power steering is oil power steering. And you run off the pump. That’s run off the shaft itself for setup stuff, the amount of shocks. They actually have a shock that mounts in the transmission tunnel, connect to it to help give suspension on the transmission itself, because the amount of movement, the chassis, [00:20:00] so you were talking about applying the brakes in the corner, I’m assuming your left foot breaking when you’re doing that, right?

You’re kind of ruddering the car, not. Taking your foot off of the accelerator and then hitting stabbing the brakes and then getting back on right? Yeah, like that’s how that o6 car set up, you know, you were easy on the brakes You move the pedals together now this car that I have is a 2018. It’s a rocket It’s uh, they call it an xr1 like that’s kind of like the chassis or whatever Or their model, the chassis model.

That one is just set up real tight. So you kind of have to abuse the car to make it want to rotate. And you use a lot of three wheel brake. Essentially it shuts the right front brake off. So the right front brake won’t lock up. So you only have the left side and then the right rear. It’ll stop and it helps kick the car sideways, but the car is set up real tight.

It kind of pushes up the track So you have to kind of run hard in the corner and jab the brake to get it to want to kick sideways And then from there you’re kind of smooth running the brake and the gas together It’s easier to do than this plane and all of this happens in a matter of seconds So it’s like in the blink of an eye.

It’s all going down in one shot It’s [00:21:00] very it’s like a dance, you know with the car and everything. I get it. That’s It’s cool. And I don’t think the audience probably appreciates that, that there’s a lot going on in the cabin of that car. You’re just kind of watching it. You know, it’s going around in circles, making a left turn, making another left turn, making another left turn.

You’re busy in there. It’s not a cakewalk. That’s for sure. When I first started doing it, I caught on pretty quick, but it wasn’t, uh, you don’t just get in the car and roll. Like, you know, a lot of people think they can just get in the car and go, but it’s not, it’s not as easy as it looks. I mean, it took me a couple of races for it to really keep up with even just the back of the pack.

It was kind of. But, you know, the more time you put in something, the more seat time you put in something, the better you’re gonna be. Very cool. Tell me about your biggest oops moment on track. Got a couple of those. We also call them Code Brown moments. Yeah. I’m gonna say probably, I started, uh, I started second in the heat race of qualifying.

It actually was a time trial shift. So I laid the fifth fastest lap of the night. I beat both my father, another guy that we help out at the event and [00:22:00] sponsor, Justin Weaver. And I was fast on him. He’s, he wins there like all the time. So he’s a very good driver, but I laid a faster lap than him. And I laid a faster lap than my father.

And I started, started first or second. I know I started on the front row of the heat race. I led like four laps and then got too high up in the marbles and just, it just, Pulled my car up and up towards the wall. I think I ended up finishing like third in the heat race But it was it was a big oops moment.

I got too happy. I got too excited Yeah, a little too confident. I couldn’t control myself Kept the wheels on the ground though, right? Yeah, as long as wheels stay on the ground It’s you’re you’re pretty good speaking of track conditions Uh, not this week from Garrett one But the week before me and some people made it out to cheer him on and there’s some support his way from the crowd Luckily, it wasn’t during his class running or Him particularly But a couple of the classes before him, the car actually rolled because the conditions in the track built a little bit of a rut in one corner and jacked him around and caught it wrong.

Lift the car up and rolled it like three or four times. So one thing I [00:23:00] wanted to add in is, like we mentioned earlier in this episode, he got his first win. So he was talking to me that he got pole position or things starting or got out there and he dropped back into second place and basically stayed in second majority because he, he was aware of the, the other driver being a very aggressive driver.

And they were like, look, you get in front of him, he’s going to just try it. So, not only is it always about leading the pack, but in that particular situation, Derek stayed in second and kept his distance until the end of the race where he came in and was managed to get by him right there at the end for the victory and sometimes patience pays off.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and one of, like I mentioned before, Dustin Weaver, he’s, he’s a big one for patience pays off because You’ll be four or five curlings ahead of the boy, and then two laps to go, he’s three curlings in front of you, you know, he, he knows how to play the mind games, so, I mean, but he’s a very good driver.

He’s been on it for years too. And sometimes that’s all part of it. It’s a mental game as much as it is a physical one, and that’s in all the motorsports [00:24:00] disciplines, right? Patience is a virtue, and a lot of times planning and waiting for somebody to make a mistake or whatever, and then, you know, you’re not running your machine, Out 110%.

You’ve got some leftover reserve at the end and then you pull it out and you get that win. So it’s all part of the game. Yeah. Let me ask you this, since you’ve been doing this now for, let’s say seven or eight years, what’s one thing you’d like to see change in the, in the dirt track discipline? I don’t know.

I guess I’m just used to it all, you know, but I mean, I was, I was out of it for three years too. So a lot of stuff that I come back to is, is just change. You know, the cars are completely different, but just me being out for three years, The cars have changed, you know, you wouldn’t think a change in 10 years would have caused.

There’s really nothing that I would change, I guess. How they’ve been, as long as I’ve known them, you know, the same concepts there. So of the changes you saw during that three year period that you weren’t, was it mostly safety related items you saw change when you came back to it, or was it just the whole designs of the cars and [00:25:00] chassis?

The only safety thing I seen was just the fire extinguishers, that was it. The only safety thing that actually, that I realized. Is we used to scale our cars. I don’t know if you guys ever done you ever have to do scaling right? Yeah corner balancing so we used to have to scale our cars And I mean we had all these numbers we had to get we had ride heights We had to get with we had the car had to have so much fuel in it and so much oil in it and so much You know It had to have oil in the lines.

You had to basically start the car and run it for a little bit before you scaled the car. And you had to have like 20 gallon of fuel was recommended. You put it on on a set of scales. You have to have your, your rear percentage needs to be this much. Your left side percentage needs to be this. Your cross weight needs to be this.

Then you have ride height. You have to measure from control arm to your bottom of the frame has to be this. You know, stuff like that. But they’ve, they’ve done away with scales. Scale is now like you don’t need to do it. Now they have these things called frame smashing. And you essentially take the shock, and you put the shock on this machine, and it’ll smush the spring down, and it’ll smush like a certain weight, so [00:26:00] say, like the right front, 2100 pound of pressure put on or something, and you have to measure how big the spring is, smashed like that.

But yeah, they completely changed how all that works. That, that was the biggest change, that you were saying. That was probably the biggest change that I’ve seen, is just how they completely just, Rework the cars and the suspension set up and make it so scaling is not useless, but it’s just not there anymore.

It’s not the way to do it anymore. What’s it take to run a dirt track car? Maybe I want to jump in and I want to get started. Obviously you’re not going to go and just, you know, build one yourself unless you’re running those thunder cars, right? Or something like that. But if you want to get into the sport, let’s kind of divide it out.

What would it, where would you look for a car? How much would it cost? For a car on average, maybe, you know, not a front runner, something to get in. And what’s it cost to enter an event? As far as entering the event, it’s just, you, you just pay your pit admissions. So like 30 bucks on average, as far as track goes, they normally don’t charge for a car.

You know, you, they just bring them in. If you wanted to start with, [00:27:00] like, say you want to start just in dirt racing, you just want to get into dirt racing. So the cheapest way is going to be what they call hobby stocks. Some tracks call them different. Basically what they they’re basically what thundercars were.

But they’re more of like, you take Fox Body or 3rd Gen Camaro or, you know, something like that. And put 351 Windsor. Some of them run like, open motor as well. So you can run 370, you can even run 400. But, that’s going to be the cheapest way to get in. You cage it. I don’t know what their safety regulations are.

I mean, I’ve only ran late model. I started in late model, so I’m not a hundred percent sure on hobby stock stuff. Can’t give you a price range of what you start, but I would say as far as just the car and the tools to do it, it was probably like maybe 10, 000 to start. I’m sure you could probably go for cheaper, but I’m saying just the tools to do it and the car, not including truck, trailer, nothing like that.

I would say it’s probably like 10 to 15, 000 to start doing that stuff. If you want to go to late model, even just 358 late model, like I’m running. We spend forty to fifty thousand in one car. [00:28:00] Wow between The frames now it’s going just a bare frame with nothing on it. It’s like five to six thousand dollars now It used to be like twenty five hundred bucks by the time you get the the rear in it And that’s the star we priced out a set of shocks with sixty five hundred dollars brand new.

Wow To get a motor built from scratch. You’re looking at ten 12, 000, 15, 000. Transmission, they’re 1, 500. We run carbon fiber driveshafts, which I think they should make everybody run carbon fiber driveshafts. So I guess that’s one of the changes I would like to see. But, yeah, carbon fiber driveshafts, 800.

Yeah, it’s like 40, 000 to 50, 000 to run one of them. If that’s, like, going for new. You’re going for used we picked up was a 2018. Uh, we bought that last year at the end of the year We picked up for cheap. We picked up for under 28, 000, you know And that was a race ready you put it on the track and go actually the guy Let me take it down to two test sessions and test it before I bought it He said, you know come down to test session.

You get to drive it test it. See how you like it I liked it the first night so I took it home He said, before [00:29:00] you pay me, come run in another test session and see how you like it. Make sure you still like it. I did still liked it and ended up with it. The tires are about 200 a tire. Um, wheels are. 150 to 300.

They don’t weigh anything. I mean, they’re, they’re extremely light. The material they use is very light aluminum, much like what’s used on ATVs. You know, people are familiar with four wheels and stuff, how light the aluminum wheels are on that. Very similar with these cars. And then a lot of them, you guys have your bead lockers, aren’t they?

Yeah, we don’t. The right side, we run bead lock. The left side, you can run bead lock. Interesting. My last question, talking about the racing part before we get into kind of the last section of the interview. What advice would you give someone that’s starting out in dirt track? I would say, you You definitely want to get some practice sessions in before you go out and race.

Susquehanna Speedway or BAP Speedway as they’re known now will let you rent the track out. So you can run it with either just you or you can get a couple of people with you. We, what we would do is normally every year we rent the track out in the beginning of the year between normally me, my uncle and my cousins, [00:30:00] you know, our whole family kind of pitches in.

If you can, if you, if you can do it, rent the track out. If you never, you know, even if you, you know, Even if you’ve ran a race car before, I still recommend running the track out. If you’re switching over from like oval or something like that, that helped me a lot. I mean, we ran probably, I probably ran like a hundred laps on that track that night that we, when I first started.

Yeah. And then once you, once you get the feel for the car, once you know what the car is doing, know how it responds. I would suggest you go to a practice session with other cars on it, so you kind of get a feel for other cars on the track with you. Because they’re most likely going to pass you. If you’ve never ran with cars before, even just on a practice session, it is still a big difference.

Just from running open with nobody there, to running with people who’ve been doing it for years. So yeah, I would jump to a practice session. And then open up to a race. Racing is a big, big jump from normal practice because people are a lot more, uh, Aggressive. Aggressive. They’re way more aggressive. Do you go into this with any sort of coaching?

Cause you know, in the road racing world, a lot of people will start in high performance driving where they’ve got somebody in the right seat with them, [00:31:00] you know, telling them what to do and where to go and where to turn and hit this apex break here and all that. And then graduate to something else, be it time trials and then club racing and then so on down the line.

Is there a similar format for dirt track? No, it’s, it’s basically you just jump in the car and drive. Yeah, there’s no right seat, so it’s just a single seat in the vehicle. Oh, no, they do have, you can go to a school that Dale McDowell, he has, I think it’s like Kentucky or Tennessee, wherever, he goes on racetrack and everything down there, and he teaches people how to drive.

He has one of them two seat late models. I think what he does is he’ll go out on the track with you or one of the instructors go with you, you run around the track for a little bit, and then you switch over to one seat late model, that two seat throws the weight off a lot, so then it will run, you know, like it’s a one seat late model, you got that run.

It’s hard to Tell somebody when to brake or tell somebody when they need to gas up. If the car is not getting set up right, or even if the car is not rotating right, you’re going to push. You’re going to, you’re going to be tight. You just got to get in and feel the track and drive. I mean, that’s, that’s really it.

For you getting out on track, since there’s not much of a coaching [00:32:00] like it is on the road course, how much of that did you use just visual perception, watching the guys in front of you, watching where they were turning, watching how far they were kicking? How much of that did you take in when you started driving, observing how the other guys drove?

Pick up and move, that sort of stuff. Kind of gonna break that down a little bit, because like, you go, when you go to the track, and you watch the people run, If you’ve never been in the car before, you don’t know what’s going on. Like, I’m being dead honest, you don’t really know everything that’s going on.

Like, when I started, I was also, you know, 12, 13 years old before I really ran the car. So, my dad was trying to show me, you know, listen to where he picks up throttle, listen to where he brakes, listen to where he pulls off the throttle a little bit, or gets on a car, you know, stuff like that. You don’t realize how much of a difference it makes when you actually drive the car to realize where Bridal is and where the break is.

So like the first time I actually tried listening to a car without being in the car, I didn’t really, I didn’t really pick up where anything was going on. Cause you kind of don’t get them cues or you can’t really, you can’t really visualize yourself in the car, getting them [00:33:00] cues or, you know, when to pick up the car, when to break after I drove the car and was in the car for a little bit.

I realized, you know, okay, well, he, he lets off at this pole or he lets off at this part of the wall, you know, use kind of like landmarks and judge where you want to lift. Williams Grove is really good for that because there’s like three poles on each corner and you can know how the track is, know what pole to lift.

So that’s, that’s a big thing that, that really would change it. Now, since I’ve been in the car for a while, you know, I have a couple of years behind me. I can go to the corner of the track and tell you exactly where I lift and where I pick up at, where I brake, you know, and how the car is going to react at that point.

I can go to the track and tell you, you know, yeah, you don’t want to run that line because it’s going to be slick, or you don’t want to run that line because it’s going to be way too heavy, and you just pick that stuff up from, from doing it, being there. Even though you guys are competing against each other, there’s a lot of knowledge sharing going on in the community because you just said yourself, you know, if somebody asked me where my line is, here it is, but granted, it’s always going to be variable based on the dirt conditions and the moisture and the humidity and all that, but Is that a fair statement to [00:34:00] say, you know, there’s a lot of sharing of information going on before you get out there and go door to door?

But I don’t know how your guys teams, you know, separate teams work together. Like the way the Dirt Track thing is, if I go to the trailer next to me and I need something, most likely they’re gonna give it to me, you know, they’re gonna, they’re gonna help me out. Like for example, I had, I had a run a couple years ago.

I bent the front bumper on my car and it was just it was pretty much unusable, you know, basically kind of knocked me out of the race We had a boy come like three trailers down He came down brought us a bumper said dude. Look we want you back in the race. Here’s the bumper Go ahead and get the nose back together.

Well, yeah, they helped put the nose back together They helped us get it all back together ended up getting on the track So my dad goes to get ready and break it all down, you know, we’re gonna he goes no Just keep it. We don’t you know, we don’t need it You’re good. We got like three other ones in the trailer.

So it’s a lot of uh, They said I don’t know how it is for you guys I don’t know if you guys have like rival teams like that that’ll just come to you and help you. Um, But the dirt track community it’s it’s honestly like family, you know They [00:35:00] they do come and cater to you and help you if you need it I’ll say it being like family.

It’s one of the things in our environment on the road course You’re always helping people out, even guys that aren’t in the club. And, but, uh, one thing I was talking about earlier is, and you know, I’d mentioned it, one thing that we don’t see as much on the road course side is. That family tempers flare in the dirt track community where it is an uncommon that come off track of the argument and yelling Sometimes it gets a little bit of a scuffle But it’s one of those things to where there’s a lot more and one of the things that I always tell people for the dirt Track is there’s a lot of people out there that like NASCAR and they refer, you know Dirt track as what became NASCAR, but I think there’s a very distinct difference between the two for me Dirt track.

I enjoy going to it because each heat might be, you know, 2025 laps. So for 2025 laps, these guys are pushing it hard as hard as they can here to the front and do what they can to full position when NASCAR, you’re sitting there for 3400 laps, just watching them go. Sir. [00:36:00] So dirt track, I find much more enjoyable and on the spectator side of it.

The great thing is a lot of times it’s a BYOB. So people will be sitting up in the stands with their, their coolers full of beer and just enjoying it and getting rowdy. And a great thing about it is it’s not much of a difference to be able to go into the pit area and be able to hang out with the drivers and stuff in between races.

I will say I was invited to go once to Lincoln to watch a World of Outlaws race. And you know, I was hesitant at first coming from my background, but then again, I’ve said it many times, I have an appreciation for anything with a motor and a way to steer it. So I was like, you know what? Let’s go. Let’s send it.

I want to see what it’s all about. And, you know, I took my wife at the times where we had the kids. To Dan’s point, it’s very family oriented. It’s very down to earth, very grassroots racing. But on the same token, it was an absolute hoot to watch. And I couldn’t believe how much fun it was. And now kind of looking back, you know, now that all of us have to wear masks every day, everywhere we go, that, that would have been a big plus back then because I think I ate so much dirt and [00:37:00] sand.

It wasn’t even funny. Especially with the outlaw cars running. I mean, it was like watching a tornado just being formed right in front of you, but at the end of the day, it was like, wow, this is really cool. This is like raw pure racing, you know, at its best. Now, you know, it may not be for everybody, but I’ll just say this, you know, give it, give it a try, you know, because you might be surprised.

You know, what, how it turns out for you at the end of the day, let’s switch gears a little bit. You know, you’ve been involved with us for a number of years now, just kind of on the peripheral, let’s just say, but you’ve been supporting our, our addiction here to, to road racing. You know, that’s been awesome.

And you’ve come out to some events, especially our summer bash events. And I know you’ve done some ride alongs. And I took you out in, uh, Bowser’s Miata, the, the first time it came out. I’ll never forget. I was just kind of talking to you, you know, we had the headset on and we’re going around, it’s a Miata.

It’s like, whatever, you know, we’re Shenandoah circuit. And, and I asked you one point, you all right. And you said to me, yeah, I just never thought we could get this much rotation on asphalt. Yeah. I didn’t, I didn’t realize the car moved like that. [00:38:00] I mean, I described that experience. Now you’ve been on a couple of ride alongs.

What do you, think of circuit racing? Yeah. Um, I mean, I like it. I was going to do it because it was more affordable for me with my own money to go and do than it would be to do this dirt stuff, especially with no sponsors. But now, you know, now we got sponsors. We got a couple sponsors that, uh, mainly the businesses, you know, really helps out.

Yeah, as far as the asphalt goes, circuit racing, I like it. I enjoy it. It’s something different when you’re used to oval so much. It’s something different to try, and I would still like to try it. Still, maybe, you know, build a car or something. I don’t know what your guys season looks like with the coronavirus thing, but I think ours might be just about over, sadly.

It’s crazy. We’ve had to delay a lot of stuff and we have summer bash coming up in August. We’re, we’re actually pushed it this year, all the way out to Pittsburgh. Usually we do it at home base, which is some point, you know, everything’s changed. Everything’s up in the air. It’s really difficult. But you talked about coming out and doing road course racing and potentially building a car.

And I think a lot of our listeners don’t realize. You’re actually an avid [00:39:00] BMW fan. So how did that happen? Yeah, well, actually it started with my father and then my father got my uncle addicted. And just between my father and my uncle, you know, got me into it. So actually we’re talking about this today. My dad, the reason why he got into BMWs in the first place was because we had one come in the yard.

That was totaled in the front and back. It was a seven series It was hitting the front and the back like real bad smooshed up And you could still open up the door and get in and out of the car with no issue So that was the big thing with painless safety and you know, they’re they’re pretty quick for what they are Especially when they weigh 4, 500 pound or whatever They’re basically boats.

I mean, they get out of their own way. My M5, I mean, that’s a 4, 000 pound car, but it doesn’t feel like it. I feel like I can, I can move that thing around the road like it’s a light car and they look good. That’s, that’s my thing. I like the way they look. Let’s talk about your growing BMW collection. So what, why don’t you tell everybody what you got?

Do we have enough time? Anyway, so my daily driver is my M5, 2000 M5. That’s an E39. [00:40:00] E39, yep. Um, I picked that up in, uh, Owen’s mail. Some, some people that watch this might know Mike Vayner. Yeah, I got it from him. It’s actually a German imported. So it’s, everything’s in kilometers, Celsius, and all that stuff.

The craziest thing that I, that I realized with it was, in Germany, they don’t have the clutch safety switch. So you can just get in it, start it, and roll. That was pretty amazing. I just figured it was just kind of like, Yeah, American cars have a lot of additional safety. Yeah, there’s a lot of safety. Not to talk bad about Americans, but we need the additional things to prevent accidents.

That’s my daily driver. My T. I. that I’ve had for like three years and haven’t touched. My project car that I’m going to get done eventually. That’s an E36 318 T. I. Yep. Cali top. It’s got canvas roof on it. Like a really big sunroof basically. It opens up to the electric convertible. Uh, Z3. I have my Z3 coupe.

I got that out of Virginia. They’re extremely rare as it is. And then, you know, being one from America. I think I read on the internet, it’s like 6, 000 of them are brought to America and Canada. Just having one is like, I guess a [00:41:00] neat on the A stack kind of thing. Yours is a non M. Yeah, mine’s a non M. It’s, but it’s still got the, uh, M54 engine in it, just a three liter naturally aspirated, but they’re light.

I mean, the thing weighs like only some hundred pounds. Do you call it a clown shoe like everybody else? Yeah, it’s a clown shoe. I think it’s ugly, but it’s beautiful to me, so. My dad hates it. My dad’s like, man, that thing is hideous. How can you even, like It’s so ugly, it looks good, you know? I remember the first time, it was shortly after you bought it, I think, you came over to my house to do some shooting, you drove that over, and I’m like, what is this?

Yeah, yeah. That was, uh, that was, that was not good getting up the driveway. It’s lowered. Yeah. So you got those three. Is there a, uh, a BMW on the wish list? Like something you really want? Probably e46 m3, but I think the next thing i’m buying is going to be uh, going to be a c6 corvette I’m getting away from i’m getting away from just for one car At least we’re talking about building a bmw track car there for a while Is that still yeah, I mean we still I still have the car I mean I walk out going to work and see it every single day.

So I don’t know it might get it [00:42:00] might get And that’s an e36, correct? E46, actually. Oh, E46, that’s right. E25, yeah. But I was 3M motor in anyway. Or I was, I was even just looking for another, trying to find a 332. Or we LS swap it. Or we LS swap it. Well, I mean, if we’re going to talk about, if we’re going to talk about engine swaps, wasn’t there a BMW V12 you had laying around you were planning on doing something with?

Yeah, that one’s going to go in the clown shoe, actually, E3. Nobody’s ever done it. Like, I can’t find one anymore. Nobody’s ever done it. I mean, even BMW hasn’t done it, and they do crazy swaps all the time. They did a, uh, they did a Roadster, that’s how I know it’s gonna fit, so, I still might do it, I don’t know, I mean, we’ll have to see.

And we’ll have you on, we’re gonna do a BMW owners episode, good, bad, and, and if, what do you think of the new BMWs that we have? Huh, I like, I like the M2s. They’re really, really sweet. The M8s are awesome. I mean, they’re all fast. You know, they’re all, they’re all fast as far as what the way they’re never going to look like an old, an older BMW.

They’re never going to, to me, they’re never going to be like what these [00:43:00] ones are, obviously in time, yeah, they’re going to be a classic because somehow they revolutionized the car community. I guess you could say, but as far as like an E39 M5. I don’t think there’s any M5 that compares. And that’s even been, I think it’s car and driver road and track.

One of them said the E39 M5 is the best driver’s sedan you can buy. And then the E46 M3 is the best driver’s car you can buy. But like the modern M3, it’s not that I don’t like it, it’s four door, but I can’t say the M3s has only been coupes, but it’s kind of like they throw their numbers off in general, not like they’ve been a hundred percent accurate the whole time, but it’s now they have, I think it’s a 320 Acer, 2.

0 four cylinder turbo and you have a 335 is a three liter turbo and it’s just they throw it all off. That and they’ll throw an M badge on just about anything. Yeah, you know, it used to be that it was just the just some of the other guys that would just put M badges on them just to try to be cool.

Because originally the M was a performance car. The M badge was a sign of performance and everybody wanted [00:44:00] to do the clone. So everybody’s like, Oh, that’s an M. So now it’s like they don’t even they’ll put an embed on everything. I mean you can have an mx1 I mean, it’s it’s crazy and they’re front wheel drive m235i comes to mind right?

You’re like, what is that? Yeah, I don’t know. I guess it’s supposed to be four man’s m2. I don’t know. I’m sure it’s quick I mean, i’m sure all of you guys know as well So I do anything coming from germany is a pretty pretty stout machine They’re all they’re all well built the new supra kind of like it I know i’m probably gonna have twitter fans hate me for saying that but I mean I do like it It is Basically bmw z4.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, that’s okay. I call it the zupra with the z It’s been proven that I think like 90 of the components on it have the bmw logo So I think the new the new bmws are cool. They have some pretty cool things I like the heated and air conditioned cup holders. That’s pretty cool Uh, the x7 has that if I had all the money to spend and I had to get like a new big suv I would probably buy the x7 Yeah, it just looks freaking [00:45:00] cool.

You just want your drink to stay cold. I want my drink to stay cold You know when you’re going down the road, you got a beer, it’s gotta stay cold, you know? Do you follow BMW in motorsport like in IMSA and stuff like that or not really? Not really I don’t, the only thing I follow is dirt racing, you know, and then what you guys do, you know, a little bit of like local work But as far as, I mean that’s like I’ve seen the 24 Hours of Daytona, I’ve seen BMW And I think this was like the first year of them bringing that M8 out, too.

This is the last year of the M8. They actually retired it because I think they were tired of all the internet memes Showing the M8 trying to swallow other cars on track because it’s like It’s like a school bus compared to everything else out there, but it did swallow everything else It’s kind of it did surprisingly Well, they did I think the big disappointment there not to get off topic is the Corvette But we’ll talk about that at a later date.

I love Corvette But no, I like them I mean, I think they’re all right. They just don’t look, the looks aren’t there. It’s [00:46:00] just to me the looks aren’t there. Very cool. I think this has been a real interesting segment I mean, I appreciate you guys for having me. Yeah, when dan asked me I was like that’s kind of just out of the blue But it was it was nice.

We got to speak with jared here Luckily, they were generous enough to become sponsors for us in the club It’s been a very positive relationship between the club and Garrett and all of us since. Yeah, and I think a lot of that has to do with the The racer connection, right? Us coming to you guys saying, Hey, we got race cars.

And then you said, yeah, well we have house race cars too. And so we bonded over that. And on that note, I think, gentlemen, it is time to end. I appreciate you both coming on today. I think this has been really cool. It’s going to be a new experience for all of our listeners. Hopefully they learned something new.

And if there’s follow on questions, we’ll definitely get them to you, Garrett. And we’ll, we’ll see where it goes and congratulations again on your win. And we wish you the best of luck on whatever’s left of this season. And if anything else, we’re definitely rooting for you in 21. So good luck. Thank you.

And for our listeners, uh, find a local dirt track, get out there and experience it. And see what it’s all [00:47:00] about. 100 percent.

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about GTM, be sure to check us out on www. gtmotorsports. org. You can also find us on Instagram 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 crewchief at gtmotorsports.

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