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What Should I Buy? The First-Time Collector Car Edition

Welcome back to another raucous roundtable of What Should I Buy? – the fan-favorite segment where our panel of petrolhead pundits tackles the eternal question: what’s the perfect first collector car for someone who wants to turn heads at Cars & Coffee?

Before diving into recommendations, our panel: Mark Shank from the 90’s WSIB episode, Don Weberg from Garage Style Magazine, Rob Parr from Collector Car Guide and Chris Bright from Collector Part Exchange – wrestled with the slippery semantics of “classic” vs. “collector.” Is a 20-year-old Ford Tempo a classic? Is a 2022 Ferrari an “instant collector”? Does rarity equal collectibility, or does emotional resonance matter more?

Chris Bright summed it up best: “Anything desirable is a collector car.” Whether it’s a DeLorean once dismissed as junk or a Caprice that went from punchline to showstopper, time and taste change everything.

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To help first-time buyers navigate the landscape, the panel broke down collector cars into digestible genres:

  • Pre-War Classics (1915–1948): Think Packards, Duesenbergs, and Model A Fords. Gunther (from Season 1) recommends starting with mass-produced models like the Model A for ease of maintenance and parts availability.
  • Post-War European (1950s–60s): Chris Bright suggests Triumph TR4s, Austin-Healey 3000s, and Alfa Romeo Giulias — small, underpowered, but full of charm and pedigree.
  • Muscle & Malaise (1960s–80s): Don and Rob dive into Thunderbirds, Oldsmobiles, and overlooked Mercurys. The advice? Look beyond Ford and Chevy — Buick, Pontiac, and even square-body Chevys offer great value.
  • Modern Classics (1990s–2000s): Mark champions quirky picks like the Alfa Romeo Milano and supercharged Oldsmobiles. These cars are affordable, fun, and often underappreciated.

Shopping Criteria

  • Best pre-war classics
  • Best post-war, pre-gas crisis classics Euro or Domestic
  • Best Muscle cars
  • Underappreciated or Hopeful classics > Prospecting
  • Classics for under $50k – Affordable Classics
  • Classics between $50-100k – Investments

Highlights

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

  • 00:00 Introduction to the Debate
  • 00:38 Defining Classic vs. Collector Cars
  • 01:16 Panel Introductions and Initial Thoughts
  • 03:31 The Evolution of Car Values
  • 11:01 First-Time Collector Car Recommendations
  • 16:28 Exploring Affordable European Classics
  • 22:04 Domestic Classics Under $50K
  • 37:39 Unloved Ferraris and Porsches
  • 40:54 Underrated Classics: Fiat X1/9 and Lancia Rally
  • 41:37 BMW E9: A Forgotten Beauty
  • 42:21 Affordable Muscle: Mustang, Camaro, and Firebird
  • 42:45 The Rise of Car Modifications
  • 45:06 Pontiac’s Hidden Gems: Tempest and GTO
  • 49:16 Malaise Era: The Dark Ages of Cars
  • 57:44 Porsche 930 Turbo: A Collector’s Dream
  • 59:14 Porsche 928: The Affordable Supercar
  • 01:10:59 80s Icons: From Lincoln to Lotus
  • 01:19:56 Oddball Cars and Cafe Standards
  • 01:20:39 Collectibles and Rare Finds
  • 01:21:48 Underappreciated 80s and 90s Cars
  • 01:25:52 Japanese Cars and the 90s Market
  • 01:28:56 First Collector Car Advice
  • 01:33:04 Nostalgic 90s Cars
  • 01:51:55 Future Classics and Modern Collectibles
  • 01:59:11 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Our panel of brake fixed petrolheads are back for another rousing what should I buy debate. Using unique shopping criteria, they are challenged to find our first time collector the best vehicle that will make their friends go, Where’d you get that? Or what the hell is wrong with you? At the next Cars and Coffee.

We get ideas and suggestions for show topics all the time. And recently someone asked us to revisit the idea of purchasing your first classic car, never looking to turn down an opportunity for a hearty debate. We said challenge accepted. And you know what that means, listeners. It’s time for another fan favorite What Should I Buy episode.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, Brad. And as our listeners know, all What Should I Buys have shopping criteria. But in this case, it unravels very quickly when you take into consideration all the different genres and eras of collector cars. Are we talking pre war, post war, muscle car, the malaise era, or something more modern?

So this begs the question, what exactly is a [00:01:00] collector card? And with the help of our esteemed panel of guests tonight, we think we can solve this puzzle and come up with some great suggestions for the first time collector car buyer.

Crew Chief Brad: All of our guests tonight have been on the show before and have experience in the classic car prospecting and investor car markets.

So please join me in welcoming back to break fix our panel of petrolhead juggernauts. Mark Schenk from the 90s What Should I Buy episode, Don Wieberg from Garage Style Magazine, Rob Parr from Collector Car Guide, and Chris Bright from Collector Part Exchange.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey guys, welcome back to the show. Thanks, we’re honored that

Crew Chief Brad: you all even won a comeback.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, as everybody knows, the what should I buys are a fan favorite. They’re a little bit more of a happy hour style, a little bit more casual. So tonight’s big debate is the first time classic car buyer. So who wants to take a stab at defining what a classic car is

Crew Chief Brad: now in the intro, we said classic car and collector car.

Are we using these [00:02:00] terms interchangeably? Because they’re different.

Crew Chief Eric: Are they?

Crew Chief Brad: If you read Jalopnik, they come out with articles all the time. These are the next future collector’s cars. Just because it’s a classic car doesn’t make it a collector car. And just because it’s a collector car doesn’t make it a classic.

Chris Bright: My business is named Collector Part Exchange. We didn’t name it Classic Part Exchange because we wanted to keep the door open for modern classics. People like are talking about modern Ferraris or whatever, you know, we wanted to have that be open to them. But I think technically classic car is 1989 and before is what I, I believe it’s.

Sounds

Mark Shank: like a middle aged man definition.

Chris Bright: Exactly. I’m mansplaining right now. Would you please shut up, Mark?

Crew Chief Brad: Do classic cars go along the way of classic rock? Like if we listen to a classic rock station, now we hear Nirvana. Does that mean anything from the nineties is considered a classic?

Mark Shank: Hell yeah. I mean, in Maryland, it’s a 20 years and you get a, you can get a classic car tag.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Is that the standard [00:03:00] across the, across the US? So,

Mark Shank: so Brad, actually, let me flip this around on you and say, I’ll give you the exception for the future classic near term. What’s a car that’s 20 years or older. That’s a collector car. That isn’t a classic. All

Crew Chief Brad: right. Is it, is a Gremlin a classic? Right

Crew Chief Eric: up there with the HHR and the PT Cruiser, but let’s let Don weigh in.

Don Weberg: Yeah, I I’m listening to all of you and and I all of you are hugely well qualified. And you know, I’m just an old fart who has an idea here. You know, one thing that has always upset me when you look at magazines, you look at podcasts, you look at television shows. And all of a sudden, let’s talk about Oh my god, the instant collector, the Aston Martin something.

Oh my god, the instant collector, the Ferrari something or other. Well, what year is that Ferrari something? Oh, it’s a 2022. But it’s an instant collector. Wait a minute. You know, it’s like saying the Viper. I remember reading about that years ago, the Viper. Oh, this is an instant collector’s item. Well, yeah, it’s going to be limited [00:04:00] production.

It’s going to be high performance. It’s going to be very expensive. Nobody’s going to be able to have this car, but what makes a five liter GT a collector car? Oh, nothing. Nothing. That’s not a collector car until today. You ask anybody, Hey, I got a 93 GT triple black chrome ponies five speed in the garage, 25, 000 miles.

Oh my God, I gotta have that car. Well, wait, wait, wait. You were the same guy that when the car was new and I bought it, you said this would not be a collector car. You know, Eric, you and I talked last time about DeLorean pretty extensively. And I think I told you, I’ve got a stack of magazines Each one with articles from the day with DeLorean in it.

One of my favorite stories is in one of them, a young writer talks about what a piece of garbage, the DeLorean is that it’ll never be worth anything. It’s going to fall apart before it’s worth anything. Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. Fast forward 30 years. I have another magazine. Where the writers gushing over DeLorean and how different they were and stainless [00:05:00] steel and gullwing doors and the plastic underbelly and all this other wonderful stuff.

And it’s such a great car. It’s an absolute collector car. You should buy it now while they’re priced right. That was written by the same guy.

Chris Bright: Don’t you think there’s this like, cars are new and then they go into the valley of death. Even if we look back, there’s even lots of Porsche 911s, like when they weren’t that valuable, then all of a sudden they became like 250, 000 cars.

Now they’ve come back down to earth, but it’s like something goes away and then it starts becoming like Ferrari Tessarossas like five years ago, you’d get one for 40, 000. 50, 000. They were not expensive cars. Now, they’re expensive to own, but now they’re back up over in 120, 140 range. And

Don Weberg: look at your Kuntosh’s.

Those cars have gone completely nuts. The 800, 000. It’ll be a couple of years. That’d be a million dollar car,

right?

Mark Shank: The residual value of the cocaine you’ll find in a test for us. Just worth more than 40 grand.

Don Weberg: That’s true. And they were all brought to you by [00:06:00] DeLorean, the dealer of the year for 1982.

Crew Chief Brad: You know, Mark, I had a little bit of time to actually think about your question.

I had to do some mental math because you said 20 years older. That’s 2002. How about the Ford Tempo, the Ford Escort, the Ford Taurus? Are those classics? Oh

Mark Shank: God, no. The Chevy Impala? yes. The Tempo, no. So, so, so, okay, so it’s got a particular model.

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, the Escort, if you actually

Mark Shank: got the, like the good one.

Crew Chief Brad: You’re talking about a particular model, the Ford Probe. I’m, I’m ragging on Ford a lot here because it’s just popped into my head. Ford Probe is just great. The Volkswagen Passat is not a classic that’s I’m sorry, the 2001 Volkswagen Passat is yeah, of course, it’s a good okay, but it’s a collector car. So wait, the 2000, it’s not a collector car either you but that was that was my question was anything that’s 20

Mark Shank: years old that

Crew Chief Brad: classic give me a car that’s not a classic that is 20 years old.

You

Don Weberg: didn’t tell me these guys were married.

Rob Parr: And it’s very undefined. But anything that’s desirable is the collector car. I mean, if you want to [00:07:00] Probe GT or something. V6 to the, whoever wants the car. That’s a collector car. Right. I mean, that same guy has six

Crew Chief Eric: of them because, you know, he needs the parts.

Crew Chief Brad: Like the guy on this panel that I’m not going to name who has about 200 Mark fours and parts.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s going to be a collector car. One of these days. That’s all I know.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Mark Shank: Cause you’re at least five collector cars

Don Weberg: now. Wait, wait, wait. Mark four. Volkswagen. the German Mark 4 or from Dearborn?

Crew Chief Eric: No,

Crew Chief Brad: not your Lincoln.

We’re talking about Volkswagen. Yeah. Okay. Not the Toyota Mark 4 either. So let me do Yeah, yeah, yeah. The

Don Weberg: Toyota. Good. Very good. Building on what you were saying about the Tempo and the Probe, etc. I have a 79 Chevy Caprice. I inherited it back in 2002. Nobody gave a crap. I was the only one who cared about that car.

It was mint condition, 40, 000 miles, two tone brown. My wife hates it. She still hates it to this day. Thanks. But here we are now 2022. And I got to tell you that car gets attention just as easily as the DeLorean, [00:08:00] as the Mustang, as any of the others, it really commands a lot of attention and a lot of respect.

Even though again, years ago, nobody gave that car anyway. It was like driving Rodney Dangerfield around. It was

Crew Chief Brad: horrible. You look like a man that would have that car on 22 inch rims. Am I right?

Chris Bright: No, God, no, no, no, no. I think that was like the biggest burn I’ve ever heard.

Crew Chief Eric: Let me do this. Let’s wrap up this thought.

I think it’s very challenging to define

Chris Bright: what a

Crew Chief Eric: classic or a collector car is. However, there is one staple guideline that we can fall back to, which is the official list of approved full classics. Thanks. from the Classic Car Club of America, which I happened to work with over the last couple of years.

And I’ll read it to you so we can separate a couple of hairs here. The Classic Car Club of America defines a full classic as a fine or distinctive automobile, American or foreign built produced [00:09:00] between the years 1915 and 1948. Many factors come into play, but a classic was a high price. Top end vehicle when new and was built in limited quantities.

That is their definition of a classic, which now we can say is distinctly different than something that would be a collector vehicle.

Chris Bright: I call bullshit on that. That’s just who the hell is a member of the classic club of America?

Crew Chief Brad: Gunther’s not on here, is he?

Crew Chief Eric: No, he was supposed to be,

Don Weberg: you know, again, Eric.

Going off to your definition, when you think about what you just read, oh, the Testarossa, instant collector item. Oh, the Viper, instant collector item. Oh, the Porsche, blah, blah, blah, instant collector item. Yeah, because nobody can afford them. They’re limited production. It’s exactly what they were talking about.

Chris Bright: I like those types of cars that are Like I own an Alfa Romeo Giulia Super. So it’s a boxy four door sedan, but it’s really cool. That car [00:10:00] gets so much attention, but it was a mass market car. It was well designed. It had a race pedigree, but there were. Tens of thousands of them made, but most of them were left to rot.

So then they became rare again. It’s like Fiat five hundreds. They’re really cute. They’re cool, but they were a mass market car. A lot of them rotted on the vine and now they’re pretty extraordinary and rare, even though they weren’t really valuable to begin with.

Don Weberg: I mean, not that I’m trying to insult you or anything.

But your Alpha and my Caprice, they’ve got a lot in common. They really do. They’re little boxy cars.

Crew Chief Eric: At least pair up your Fiat 124 with his Alpha. I mean, come on.

Don Weberg: No, no, no, no, no, no. We’re talking about boxy sedans. Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: okay. Not Minnietti Morelli sponsored vehicles. Yeah, I got you. It’s all good. No, no, no.

Don Weberg: AC Delco, baby.

AC Delco.

Rob Parr: Especially if it’s an Impala SS.

Don Weberg: Oh, those are the best, aren’t they?

Crew Chief Brad: Oh yeah. Oh, the nineties ones. Yes. Fantastic.

Don Weberg: Yeah. My neighbor has one. I salivate every time I see that thing. [00:11:00]

Crew Chief Brad: LC one engine.

Crew Chief Eric: So for our first time collector car buyer, let’s call them that or classic car buyer. I think we need to now split this into different genres, which is why we actually have all of you on this show, because you represent the different genres that these cars can be dissected into.

Unfortunately. Gunther couldn’t make it. He was on an earlier episode of Break Fix in season one, where he came on and talked about Packards and actual classics from the classic car of America. So we call those pre war classics. Some of those are post war up to 1948, just after the Second World War. Then you have the post war cars, much like what Chris has with that Alfa Romeo being in the 50s and early 60s, right?

That heyday, the Dolce Vita times. Then you’ve got these pre gas crisis, the muscle cars. This is where Rob and Don come into play. And then you’ve also got the malaise era, which Don is very familiar with. It’s one of his favorites. Then there’s Mark coming at this from. The last 20 years and older in the nineties with those [00:12:00] are those collector cars now.

So now let’s kind of go around the horn a little bit here and talk about maybe some suggestions for the first time collector buyer for a car. That’s let’s say in today’s market with adjusted for inflation, 50, 000 or less. So who wants to take on the challenge of a suggestion for our first time car buyer?

Crew Chief Brad: Square body Chevrolet.

Square body Silverado, but I will say from Gunther’s episode, one thing he did recommend a lot of people like to go out and buy the rarest car they can find is like, Oh, it’s an instant classic Gunther’s philosophy was exactly the opposite of that, especially with the cars that he was dealing with. You want something that was more mass produced, something that a lot of people have.

Because then it’s a lot cheaper and a lot easier to get replacement parts. And when you’re dealing with cars from pre 1948 or whatever, he said, you know, they’re all rare at that. That is extremely important to be able to find parts to keep the car running. And that’s our ultimate [00:13:00] goal was to have a car that we can keep running.

I

Chris Bright: know where you can find parts. That’s a whole other conversation. And I think I’m putting myself, I was out at a cars and coffee last weekend and there were some, you know, kind of 18 to 20 year old kids and they were driving some interesting stuff. And we all forget the whole hot rod culture was basically built out of taking mass produced cars and making them your own.

Right. And now we revere that. When people kind of shit on kids who are doing things with Subarus. It’s like, it really makes me angry because here are these kids. It’s like, they don’t have a lot of money. They’re probably working in a, you know, a Starbucks job or something like that. And this kid had, did any of y’all know what an Alfa Romeo Milano or a 75 is?

It’s kind of like a family car, but it’s got a V6 Busso engine that when you tune it up, right, sounds like a formula one car and a transaxle. Drives like a dream. They race them back in the day. So it’s got some pedigree and you can get one of those [00:14:00] for like seven or eight grand, what a cool car for a kid to have.

It’s unusual. It’s different. They get to learn about the history of a different mark that they may not have been part of. I don’t care what you’re into. If you’re into cars. We’re all down for it. And that’s what I love about cars and coffee is like guys rolling up in 250, 000 supercars parking right next to these kids that I’m talking about that have 5, 000 cars.

Like I talked to a kid who he was 15 and he had with his dad’s help, he had helped him rebuild a Corvair. And, uh, you know, it’s like, I want to give you a hug. I, I wish I at 15, this is getting out

Crew Chief Eric: free hugs. Now, can you believe it?

Don Weberg: It’s the, it’s that drink. It’s that adult drink. He’s got, I

Mark Shank: really wanted to be a kid. Cars and coffee. Just don’t do it.

Crew Chief Eric: See, your cars and coffee are very different than ours. Cause ours are full of new age Mustangs and Camaros. [00:15:00] Like I, you know, I don’t get it. There

Mark Shank: definitely is a car culture in Portland around, you know, that they’d like to bring the oddities out.

You can find, you know, early seventies, two door BMWs and other really kind of interesting stuff out there. It’s kind of cool.

Crew Chief Eric: The last time I visited Portland, I was shocked by the number of VW Type 2, squarebacks, 411s, all that kind of stuff. You know, station wagon culture for sure and in vans. And I’m like, wow, this is awesome.

But I also have to remember West Coast. They don’t rock like they do here on the East Coast. So for us, they’re like unicorns. But out there, it’s like, wow, amazing. Still on the road. To go back to Brad’s point about what Gunther was saying, he’s 100 percent right. And I will not. Try to imitate his German accent.

Uh, so if you’re listening, I’m not going to do it, but one of the things he did say, if you’re looking pre war specifically, let’s start there. He said, model a Ford is a great place to begin your journey in that. [00:16:00] Genre of classic or collector car, because to Brad’s point, they’re mass produced parts are everywhere and you won’t break the bank.

It’s when you get into the Packards and some of the Duesenbergs and all that stuff, you have to build your way up to that. You can’t just walk in and say, ah, yeah, I’ll take that studs over there. Have a nice day. I mean, maybe you can, but the pre war cars, they’re getting tougher and tougher, you know, to deal with, but they’re still really cool.

I’ve driven some of those cars. They’re as fun as something modern, but in a different way. Right. So it really depends on what gets you excited. So why don’t we move to the heyday and go back to Chris for a moment and talk about the 50s and 60s. What have you got? What’s a, what’s a suggestion outside? The Milano is really modern, right?

That’s a late, late 80s, 90s car.

Chris Bright: Yeah. 80s generally, you know, if you’re looking for something earlier and I’m going to focus more on the European side, like 60s, that’s affordable. That window is narrowing pretty quickly, especially if you’re kind of to the, uh, Below 50 K. But from my [00:17:00] standpoint, I like smaller cars, kind of underpowered cars in many ways.

Like my Julie is a 1. 3 liter and I took it out on tour and I like everybody else was having a good time, but I was working, I was driving the same speed as they were, but I had to work to keep that. 80 horsepower kind of up with traffic. Right. That’s what I kind of skew towards. So there’s like a really cool kind of a little bit off the radar called an a bar record Monza, really cool little car.

They’re a little bit higher in there right around the late fifties, early sixties, and they come in at around 80 K. They’re really cute and unusual. They’re fun. They’ve got a race pedigree, but they aren’t like overpowered either. They’re. Four cylinder, but they rip tuned up. They’ve got hot cams. They’ve got really tight suspensions, pretty nice looking cars.

So, you know, if you’re looking like in the fifties, I would look at that or maybe like an Austin Keely 3000, something in those ranges, but you’re still talking like around 50 K and I, I want to offer. People who are listening to this, like kind of like a, [00:18:00] a lower level. And I think if I was really pointing to something European, I really dig Triumph TR4s, those are cool convertibles, great proportions, fun to drive, beautiful, not common, but not expensive either.

You can probably get one for 20, 25 K. You know, I’m an Alfa Romeo guys, you’ve all deduced. And I really am a fan of. The earlier alphas from the 50s are really cool and iconic. But again, their prices are going up out of the reach of what someone might want to do for their first classic car. And 50s cars can be a lot if you aren’t really up for that.

So I kind of steer people into the 60s and 70s range of alphas, which are all the 105, 115 years. They all have common drivetrains. So There’s three models. There’s the belina or the the four-door sedan, the two-door coops, and then the the open top spiders. So you have three different distinct looking cars, but they’re all on a common drivetrain.

So parts [00:19:00] are inexpensive and available. They’re easy to repair. You can. Literally disassemble the engine with some wrenches and some Allen keys and you can tear down the entire engine. They’re bulletproof engines, four cylinder chain drive, double overhead cams, lots of fun to drive, plentiful, unique, and available.

Mark Shank: Assuming they don’t have Spica fuel injection.

Chris Bright: No, I recommend Spica. I disagree. Very cool. Well, then you can’t say it’s

Mark Shank: easy. Then you can’t say it’s an easy repair.

Chris Bright: You said about the dining room. One or the other. You got to pick one. Once you get them tuned, they just, they’re pretty bulletproof. They’re really good.

But you know, I’m, I’m a fan of carburetors, carbureted engines and stuff. Like my car has a Delorto. It’s got a single Delorto, but most people have put a couple of Webers on there and they’re rippers. They’re fine. And they’re really great cars to drive super well balanced, but not overpowered.

Crew Chief Eric: Chris, since you speak a little Italian, do you know what Delorto translates to in English?

Chris Bright: I believe of the, of the [00:20:00] forest or

Crew Chief Eric: of the garden garden, which is a slight reference to being agricultural.

Chris Bright: Lamborghini was a tractor company. Come on. I know. Right.

Crew Chief Brad: But I was thinking it meant being environmentally friendly, a car, a car motor, environmentally friendly.

Crew Chief Eric: Before I pass the baton, I do want to play off something you said about the barth.

I am a big fan of the Fiat 850. That’s a cheaper version of a similar car. They came in a ton of different variants. You can get into coupe and all this kind of stuff. I think they’re again, quirky. The one really neat thing about that car, people don’t realize it’s rear mounted, just like a nine 11. So you can have some really fun trailing throttle oversteer in those cars, but it technically doesn’t have enough.

Horsepower to get out of its own way, but still it’ll put a smile on your face, you know, day in and day out.

Chris Bright: No, I think that’s a great suggestion. Another great car. I mean, there, there are different cars. I mean, some of them have just gotten so valuable that I wouldn’t steer someone that for their first car.

Right. You know, and like [00:21:00] Porsche three 56 is they’re kind of fun, but since

Crew Chief Eric: you brought that up, I’ll put it to our other resident Porsche guy on the list here. What about the beetle? He makes a grimace when I say beetle.

Mark Shank: I’ve had friends that are huge beetle fans. It’s almost a subculture in and of itself.

It’s like beetles, Jeeps, they are their own culture. And it’s like, at that point, what year do you buy? You just buy one made in the nineties in Mexico. That’s. Just a more recent copy of the 1960s or 70s version. Like, uh,

Crew Chief Eric: everybody wants a split window. We all know this, right? They’re only a hundred grand. I mean, come on.

But I think the Beatle is an entry level Collector car in a way. I mean, it is mass produced, but you can do really, to your point, you do really cool stuff with Beatles, right? I mean, I’m not saying turn it into a Myers Manx overnight or something extreme, but you can have a lot of fun with the bug for not a lot of money.

So I think it fits maybe in that same category as the Fiat 850, or even the early one 20 fours, which are [00:22:00] more in the seventies, but we’ll talk about that in a little bit. I want to give Rob an opportunity. You got anything from the domestic side of the house in the fifties that would be under 50 K that would be good starter.

Rob Parr: You’re having a little bit of a challenge on that. Because those cars are going, most of them are going over 50, they’re decent ones. Your Fords are cheaper, overall. Fords are less expensive, although their prices are coming up higher. I’ve seen these crazy auction prices, and Thunderbirds used to be less than 50, now they’re going over 50.

Depends on condition, all about condition. What’s in the car and who built the car and all that good stuff. But I, I, you could probably get under 50 and a Thunderbird.

Don Weberg: I agree with what he was saying. The Thunderbirds are a great way to go, especially, uh, you know, the 57s, 55, 56. Those are always a little, but I think if you get a square bird, which is a 58.

To, uh, 60, those, you can always get a real nice bargain on, you can even get the 61 to the 60, uh, 66. Those are pretty nice too. The, the, to me, they look like a switchblade, but, uh, those are pretty nice too. [00:23:00] You can always get a nice bargain. And I guess I’m a sucker for this, but what is it that you like? You know, if you like the 57 Thunderbird, we can find you one for under 50.

It’s going to be over 20, I’m sure, but you know, we can still find you one. It just depends on I had a friend back in the day, he had a 70 Charger. I remember thinking to myself, that to me is the ugliest of the three, the 68, 69, and 70. I prefer the 68, but I never liked that big lip mouth that the 70s had.

I just thought those were kind of ugly. But I remember thinking to myself, why did you buy that one? Why don’t you hold on to the 68 but I got to thinking they’re basically the same car. Just go enjoy yourself. Have a good time. Don’t get stuck on stupid little details. And. You know, not enjoy the car, the 50 60s are getting harder and harder because the cars are going up.

What is it that makes a, uh, a fair lane more collectible than a falcon? Does it go back to what you were saying about the ACA where it has to be rarer, it has to be more expensive, it has to be more powerful. Okay, well, that would be a fair lane [00:24:00] over a falcon for sure. But I’ve seen a lot of falcons out there that are just exquisite.

They’re, they’re crazy. And you think to yourself, why would you put all this money into a Falcon? Oh, because I like it. Ah, there it is. Your recommendations for the fifties or sixties. I, I, God, there are so many different cars out there. Even if you go off the big three and start looking at other cars from Hudson, look at the car from Willis.

There’s all these different off the beaten path manufacturers that really were results from coming out of World War II. Everybody wanted a car, and there was this flurry of manufacturers popping up left, right, center. I’ll tell you one that I think is off the grid, that two of them that always pop to mind, is Mercury.

And Oldsmobile collection cars, always Ford, Chevy, bam, there they are. Then there’s Cadillac Lincoln, you know, and then somewhere there’s this Imperial guy off to the side. When you get down to it, it’s always Ford, Chevy, Ford, Chevy, Ford, Chevy. Then there’s the Imperial guy. Then there’s a Chrysler guy, the Cadillac guy, that Lincoln guy.

You rarely hear about the old mobile guys or the Mercury guys. Cause there are none because of that. There’s a [00:25:00] glut of cars out there that cannot find buyers because people don’t think about them. You know, one of the cars I look at every now and then is a, it’s a 69 Mercury Marquis convertible. It’s a great car.

It’s basically the same thing as a Ford XL. You’ve got the 429, you’ve got the four barrel, the, the C6. You got all the stuff to make it go, but it’s thousands less than the Ford. It’s a knee jerk reaction. Get a Ford, get a Ford, get a Ford, get a Ford, or get a Chevy, get a Chevy. Well, wait a minute. Why don’t we slow down?

Let’s go up a scale. What about a Mercury? What about an Oldsmobile? You’re getting more car for the money, and it’s less money, usually. I encourage people to look outside of the neighborhood and see what you can find that way.

Rob Parr: Also add to Don’s suggestion, Buick. And possibly Pontiac and also go with the cars that are not the high end models now.

So like a Pontiac T37, for example, that’s like 1970. But if you go back to like the Buick Skylarks, the Pontiac Lomanzas, the Oldsmobile, not the 442 necessarily, but the, um, [00:26:00] Cutlass. The Cutlass.

Don Weberg: Yeah.

Rob Parr: You can get those almost at a bargain rate. Actually, Chris did a swap meet with me. It was a 1965 Buick Skylark convertible.

A guy was selling for 12, 000. Decent shape. Probably could have got it for 10, 000. I mean, it could probably work more money. I think that’s where to go now. And the parts, you can still get the parts.

Mark Shank: I’d like to throw in a quick plug since we’re talking about GM’s dead relatives. They made some cool supercharged Oldsmobiles in the 90s.

Yes, they did. They were kind of badass.

Don Weberg: Yes, they did. No, you’re absolutely right. And don’t forget the quad four. Yeah. That was a tough little guy. It really was. I

Crew Chief Brad: was going to ask, was that Buick Skylark mint green convertible and was it coming out of the sack of suds? To their point, I’m on Hemings right now and you can get a 68 Oldsmobile 442 for 40 grand.

That’s really good. That’s really good. Yeah. Don’s right. Everybody sleeps on the other bastard children of the GM and Ford.

Crew Chief Eric: No Mopar love here though. I don’t, I

Crew Chief Brad: don’t,

Don Weberg: you know, [00:27:00] it’s funny. I love, I do. I love those old Chrysler, but my God, are they outrageously expensive? If they have a fin, forget about it.

Yeah. I need

Crew Chief Eric: leather and Ricardo Montalbán. Okay.

Don Weberg: And don’t forget in 1981, they reintroduced the Imperial. And they had to go a step above Ricardo. They got Frank Sinatra to introduce that. They went all the way out, baby, all the way up, you know, get your three martinis, let’s go have some dolls. You know, I mean,

Mark Shank: I love what you said earlier, Don, you know, the, you find a car that somebody spent an irrational amount of money on.

I learned that lesson on my father’s knee with his. 72 dots in two 40 that you couldn’t hold together. The thing just instantly rusted and fell apart. Like every time you put a new thing on it, it just turned to dust. Like Thanos snapped his fingers or something, but he loved that car. He put the money into it and he sold it for a small, small fraction of what he put into it because when he sold it, it wasn’t cool yet in the early nineties or whatever, for actually giving car buying advice, [00:28:00] instead of kind of.

Taking the piss with each other. If I’m buying my first classic car, I would look for a car that somebody spent money on, like they were going to give it to their kid and this was going to stay in their family for the next several generations.

Don Weberg: Yeah. I think that’s a good idea. And I think that applies to any car you’re going to get.

I mean, really try to buy the best of the best of the best that you can.

Rob Parr: Cheaper to buy a car already restored or highly worked on versus buying a pile of junk, so to speak. But there’s a lot of people to buy, buy piles of junk for VIN numbers. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars because it could be a sentimental reason they’re buying it, not because it’s a practical reason.

Crew Chief Eric: So what you guys are saying is the adage from racing, how to make a fortune in racing is to start with a large one is this is very much the same in collector car world, right? That being said, it sounds like we ushered ourselves into the late sixties and early seventies without even really trying. So I got a couple of cars to throw out there that, you know, for you guys to chew on.

One of them personal favorite of mine and I kind of [00:29:00] rediscovered it when the Clint Eastwood movie came out called Gran Torino and specifically the Gran Torino sport. I personally think it’s the only good looking one because the Starsky and Hutch one is terrible. Many people will argue with me. Don’s making a face.

I’m a big fan of square lines and round headlights. You know, that’s why I like M3s and other things like that. But that car has a really nice shape to it. It has nice hips. It has nice curves. I don’t know what they go for, but that would be on my list to target if I was looking for a car from that era.

Chris Bright: I have just a story to add to that.

When I was A little, little boy. The first car that my parents bought new was a grand Torino. They kept it long enough where I got to learn to drive three on the tree in that car. It wasn’t one of the nice, but it was a, it was a six cylinder, but, uh, still great car. Super fond of it. I

Crew Chief Eric: mean, that’s like having a six cylinder challenger.

I’d still be okay with it. You know what I mean? Which brings me to another car [00:30:00] that is out of the realm of possibility, but it’s always been on my collector car list for that early muscle car era, or it’s right in the muscle car era really is a 70 challenger. Like you saw in vanishing point, like I fell in love with that car.

It’s nothing really to write home about in those days. But you’re just like, Oh, it’s so cool, you know? And so if they were below 50 grand, I’d be all over it. But for less than 50 grand, you could buy a Viper two years ago, and it’s a way better car. But I do have one other one, and it’s right on the edge of when things started to turn and the EPA got involved and safety started to change.

And then after the highway, Whatever you say next, prepare. I will stop at 1973. Say the MGB, because that’s before they got the ugly bumpers. ,

Rob Parr: we could say that about the portion. Nine 14, also a

Chris Bright: hundred percent true. 14. Fix the bumpers. That’s not hard. That was one of my recommendations as a nine 14.

Crew Chief Eric: I’d love nine 14, and I go along [00:31:00] Eric.

Product placement. Product placement. Venmo

Chris Bright: me. Uh, I was just hanging out with this guy who is like the Porsche 914 King down in Redwood city, California. He raced them and his whole business was he started road racing them and he’d go out and kick everybody’s ass. And then all of them would come in and they would.

Pay him to tune up their cars and then he would kind of keep that going. So I owned a Porsche 9 28, which we’ll get to in a little bit. Oh, oh,

Crew Chief Eric: I’m right there with you on that. So, so we’ll that come

Chris Bright: because it’s, we’re not in that era yet, but any Porsche that isn’t a rear engine Porsche, I love, they two exceptions, the 9 24 and the 9 68, those are garbage.

But uh, the 9 28. Don’s face is priceless. I

Mark Shank: could like you. I did.

Chris Bright: Like I had a Cayman, you know, it was mid engine, but I think that’s a [00:32:00] very rich scene because they’re undervalued. Like the nine 11 rear engine, especially air cooled, but now even water cooled. They’re the top performers and the ones that people splash cash on, but.

Go get a 944. Go get a 928. I promise you, you will, if you get one, that’s good. And if you like the

Mark Shank: 944, what’s wrong with the

Chris Bright: 968? They’re just ugly.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, I don’t know. You have blasphemed.

You

Mark Shank: have to give a better reason than aesthetics. Aesthetics is relative. The 968 is a good car. I think it

Crew Chief Brad: looks good. The 968 is a perfect car. And the 924 is a great car, too. No, no,

Chris Bright: no,

Crew Chief Eric: no, no.

Chris Bright: I love those cars. It just looks like someone, there was a little baby playing with cars, and they took a 944, and they were going, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, and they matched it with a 928, and it’s just like That’s 100

Crew Chief Eric: percent what they did.

Chris Bright: it is.

Don Weberg: Don’t you remember the ad? Don’t you remember the magazine ad and it shows the cars that are [00:33:00] staggered and the ad said simply it has his father’s eyes. Remember that?

Crew Chief Eric: 100%. And that was

Don Weberg: the 9 68. It just doesn’t work for me. So,

Crew Chief Eric: so let’s, let’s backpedal on this a little bit, right? Because you’re, you’re on to something and we’re going to get to this a little bit later on to the 9 14 is in the lineage.

Of Porsche that is one of the true roadsters. So that is defined as a proper two seater, no backseat. So none of these nine 11s with their jump seats or speedsters, they’re not roadsters, right? So it follows the lineage of the five 50 and some of these other vehicles. And there’s another episode that you can nerd out on where Lee Raskin talks all about that along with James Dean and his whole history, but what I’m getting at is the nine 14 has been underappreciated for so long that it is a good buy.

If you can find one. Now you’re not going to buy. A last year to leader. Good luck on a 9 14 6. That’s out of the equation. Those are

Chris Bright: six figure cars.

Crew Chief Eric: So you’re gonna get stuck with a 74 with the [00:34:00] ugly rubber bumpers because of the ones that nobody wants because the early cars are either to somebody’s point a race car.

Or completely unaffordable. That said, recently we reviewed an article from Forbes where they nominated the 914 as an up and comer in the collector world. But I wouldn’t vote for that on this list. I’m with Don. I want to go for the weird one. I want to go for the oddball. I want to go for the 912. Which gives me the 911 styling with the 914 powerplant.

Nobody wants a 912.

Don Weberg: For good reason. You know, I think, I think your conversation is getting very, very interesting here because I’m a huge fan of Ferrari 308. I, I really am. It’s the Magnum PI upbringing, I guess, but I’ve always loved that car. And I watched them just. Skyrocket in value in the last few years.

Well, why is that? If you start to look around all the Ferraris, especially those V12s and Chris, correct me if I’m wrong, you’re kind of the resident Italian guy here, but the V12s, the flat 12s, they’ve all been going absolutely psychotic. Well, I want a [00:35:00] Ferrari. I want a Ferrari. Well, I’m going to go get a 308.

That’s what I’m going to get. Cause I can afford a 308. I can go get a 308. Now taking this back over to Porsche, 914s, chrome bumper, 914s, 6. Unobtainium. So we go get the next best thing, which is the rubber bumper. Everybody wants to call it ugly, but whatever here nor there, but it’s what I can afford. You see what I’m saying?

So people get into the mode and that’s what’s going to drive up the price of the 914 rubber bumper. Is everybody wanting it? What happened to the 308? Uh, the stories I could tell you about 308s, I could have had, but everybody told me, Oh, don’t buy that. That’s a shit car. You don’t want that car. It’s a terrible car.

You don’t want that car. They built too many of them. Never be worth anything. Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. We’ll look at them now. First rule of car

Mark Shank: buying. If Jeremy Clarkson says, don’t buy it, buy it. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Why do you want a Ferrari? Can I interest you in a Mondial? The

Chris Bright: Mondial and the 968 in a room and [00:36:00] like, Birthed, uh,

The . I mean, do do’s

Crew Chief Eric: having an aneurysm? Don’s gonna have a heart attack. ’cause every car we say is ugly. I’m just gonna leave ugly. He’s, I, I’m just gonna leave.

Don Weberg: I’m gonna go hug my caprice and I’m gonna leave, you know, .

Crew Chief Eric: But what’s interesting about the 3 0 8, I want to go back to that for a moment, right?

That like the 9 44 was the every man’s Ferrari, right? Mm-Hmm. . And the 9 44 was the every man’s Porsche. It was affordable back then. They’re still sort of affordable today. But the thing that is actually really obtainable, if you love the body style of the three Oh eight, and now because of gray market laws and things like that, you can get them, they weren’t sold here, but there was a two Oh eight, which was a two liter turbo VA that was available in Europe.

And it’s looks exactly the same, but nobody knows the difference. I’m sure Chris is too. I’m on some of these Italian car marketplaces and I see them all the time. And it’s like, Oh, 12, 000 euros and you can have a 308 and nobody knows the difference, right? So I think they’re kind of cool.

Chris Bright: I think they’re cool, [00:37:00] but they were so unloved that it’s hard to find one that’s even worth saving.

That’s the challenge when you get into some of these oddball cars, those cars in particular, if they’ve been sitting around, it’s going to cost you five times what you paid for it to get it back on the road and kind of be operational. So if you’re doing it and you have a good one and someone who’s loved it and driven it often, that’s great.

If it’s been under a tarp in the back of a garage, run away, run fast and far. This,

Don Weberg: this could bring you business. You should be encouraging people

Chris Bright: in the business,

Don Weberg: buddy. Come

Chris Bright: on. Sometimes I don’t always think of my own best interests, but, you know, just to pick up the thread of this. So I own a Ferrari 348, which is often referred to as one of the most unloved Ferraris of all time.

I love them. Thank you very much.

Mark Shank: It is though. I’m not saying that’s right. I’m just saying,

Chris Bright: yeah, it’s true. Those things that I had portion 9 28 which was unloved and I had now a Ferrari 3 48 and it’s unloved. I got it for [00:38:00] 33, 000 and it was very well maintained and very well loved. Oh my God. What a bargain.

It’s got a rip in the, a last analog Ferrari, no power steering. It’s got renowned for its steering and drivability. It’s a phenomenal car. It will be available on bring a trailer by the time this episode comes out. But, uh, I think one of

Crew Chief Eric: the best parts about the three 48 though, aside from the price is if you’re not in the know, it’s one of those cars.

Kind of like the 968 that you didn’t know what it was when it was coming or going. Because if you look at it from the back, if you’re not a Ferrari person, you say, Oh, look at that Tessa Rosa. Cause it has those, those greats over the lights. It’s really wide. And from the front, you think it’s a 512 TR because of those fog lights and the grill at the way that it’s scooped in the front.

So you’re like, you kind of don’t know what it is. They’re super cool because they are understated and they’re pretty cheap. Now, granted engine out is the service [00:39:00] position to do any maintenance.

Chris Bright: That’s the whole Ferrari scam. Right. And I kind of warn people off of buying Ferraris in general, just because they have these incredibly expensive by design.

It was part of the business plan to have these engine out services to keep the service departments at the dealerships. Operational and keeping the money coming in, but the three 48, we’ve kind of jumped out of the era that we were talking about. I bring it up only because it was in the, the, the nine 14, but that particular car it’s less related to a Tessa Rosa or even a three 28.

It’s actual big brother is the F 40. It’s got the longitudinal engine. It’s like an un, Turboed F40. Now it’s got a little bit lesser parts, but it’s got the same layout and a lot of the same drivability and a lot of the same. There’s a lot of common parts between them. And the fact that 328s are cool, but one of the problems is they aren’t cool in a literal way because the radiators are [00:40:00] right in front of the driver’s compartment.

And in the summer day, you just get heat bombed out of them. So in the 348, they moved them back. That’s why the, the, the streaks are on the side. Great car, really fun to drive. And, and I think that’s a philosophy that I have is like, go for the little oddball, like you guys were talking about where it’s like a little off the mark, cause you get like 98 or 99 percent of the car for probably sometimes a third or a quarter of the price of the one that everybody aims at.

Crew Chief Eric: So I’ll throw a couple others. So now we’re in 1968 to 1974, right? We’re sitting in that era. The pre Malaysia era, which Don will define for us here shortly. The other cars that we’ve overlooked are entries from BMW, like the 2002s, but also the Audi 100s. They also get overlooked, right? They had some Audi 100 coupes back then, you know, Pre dating the famous UR Quattros and all that, and those are out there.

I’ve seen some popping up on Instagram lately, and also you mentioned the 308 and 328. We’re going to go back to that [00:41:00] again. They’re the big brothers of the Fiat X1 9. So that’s another underappreciated car. It’s not. Fast by any stretch of the imagination. But if you want an affordable version of that with plentiful backing, because they were raced forever and there’s a big subculture for X one nines, that’s another car to look at.

Chris Bright: Piggyback on that, which is the launch of full via rally car with a, it’s really interesting if you guys ever seen one or been around them, the engine is all cockeyed and rotated over to lower the center of mass. And they’re incredibly good cars. And they’re very unappreciated because lunch yet.

Especially in the U S was never that big of a deal or very well known. So I’ll just throw that one in there as a, another one,

Mark Shank: one of my favorite cars in that era, the BMW E9 before bringing trail, I got ruined. I used to look at those things and they were, most of them were in Portland. And I mean, I haven’t priced one in a while.

I hope they’re still under 50 grand, but they were pretty damn reasonable.

Crew Chief Eric: Beautiful cars too.

Mark Shank: Yeah. And gorgeous. Like the proportions are [00:42:00] great. No, they’re not fast. At all. Well,

Crew Chief Eric: everybody wants the CSL or the quote unquote Batmobile and that version of it, but why not just have the regular 6, 3, 5 or whatever the equivalent is,

Don Weberg: 800?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. You can do an

Mark Shank: engine swap and then you don’t feel guilty if you do something interesting with it. Like, what the hell?

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I, I guess if I’m,

Mark Shank: if I’m giving legitimate advice, don’t feel bad about being basic. Ford. So everybody

Crew Chief Eric: aspires to buy a rental car. I’ve said it many times. If you

Mark Shank: like us, if you like a 69 Mustang or Camaro, then get a 69 Mustang or Camaro.

Like there’s a million things you can do with that platform. You can fix any problem you don’t like. You don’t like the interior. There’s a ton of options. You don’t like the, the axle. You can put an IRS kit in the back. You can do anything you want with those platforms. As far as you want to take them.

Rob Parr: You know, we’ve talked about everything that’s from the stock point of view. Really haven’t talked about modified because today people are modifying pretty much almost everything. I mean, you got your purists out there, but now we got a new generation coming in here and, and even the guys in our older [00:43:00] age range with everything.

Well, how do I want to drive this car and what comfort level do I have? Do I want to add air to it? Well, I’d rather ship versus an automatic one. I was just like, change my transmission, put a five speed in one way. They only have four speeds and then I could drive on the highway or 80 miles an hour. Crazy rear ratios like 411s can’t drive those things unless you have a, an overdrive, right?

Yeah. On the highway, it begs to mention that, you know, we might want to look at consider that as well. And that’s going to probably will affect the value. Obviously nowadays they, you see these crazy cars going with auction or higher than stock value when they’re highly modified. You got five or two cubic inches, probably with the supercharger, you got six gears or they’re using two 56s in them now.

You know, anything’s possible, but I would go back again like we were talking about before. If you don’t have to get a Camaro, get a Firebird.

Don Weberg: I am a Firebird junkie. I don’t mind Camaro. I think they’re okay. But Firebird and Trans Am have always just, you know, again, it’s that white trash, smoky in the bandit upbringing, I guess.

Mark Shank: But if you’re going to get a, if you’re going to [00:44:00] get a malaise muscle car, you might as well get a Firebird. Like, are we moving in? Are we moving

Crew Chief Eric: into the late 70s now? Are we going there? You

Don Weberg: don’t have to, you don’t have to, you know, it was funny. We were talking about your challenger earlier. You’re talking about your challenger in 1970.

And it’s really funny because in the back of my mind, I’m thinking to myself, give me a Trans Am any day of the week, twice on Sunday. I don’t care what the challenger pack and give me a Trans Am. Again, it’s personal preference. It really is. I’ve had a few Mopars they’re interesting. They’re unique. I’ve never had a Trans Am, just always wanted one, but you know, the Trans Am first started 1969 with the first body style, first generation, but it was very limited.

So that goes right in your hand of what’s a collector car. Anybody who knows GM muscle cars, anybody who knows muscle cars, I’ll tell you right off the bat. The original 69 Trans Am is one of the absolute crown jewels, especially If it’s one of the seven or eight convertibles that were built and it’s seven or eight because nobody can agree.

Was it seven? Was it eight? [00:45:00] Nobody really knows. It was one or the other. Obviously, if you have a car of one of seven or eight built, you know, you kind of won the bet.

Crew Chief Eric: Why not a Tempest? Not a GTO. You can make a Tempest into a GTO. And I know everybody wants the Judge, right? And all that stuff.

Don Weberg: And here’s kind of the funny thing.

When you’re talking about Pontiac, when it, when you go to Tempest, before John DeLorean snuck the GTO into the back door, GM wanted to kill, they thought, nah, we’re never going to be able to sell enough of these things. Get rid of this stupid GTO. I don’t want to hear about it. We’re going to get a lawsuit from Ferrari.

It’s just not worth it. And DeLorean made it. What an options package for the Tempest. Well, I don’t know exactly how it went down, but there was the Tempest 3 26 HO and not many people know about these cars, and they were literally, it was a high output, 3 26 4 barrel, the whole nine yards heavy duty suspension.

Basically, it’s a baby GTO. But I wanna say 1964, they built 3,800 of those cars, or 4,200 of those cars versus [00:46:00] 33,000 GTO. Equipped Tempest. But the question is, where do you find them? A lot of people that have Tempest, they don’t even know that they have the HO or the, the lamont. They don’t even know that they have that HO package.

They just know that they have a really cool old car that looks like a GTO. They have no idea what they’ve got. You know, that’s one of those funky cars that if you really start to look again, we’re going back. Who, Hey, buy a Mercury, buy an Oldsmobile. Okay, fine. Buy a Pontiac, the Bonneville’s. Holy cow. I mean those, that’s like buying a Cadillac.

Those things are or Grand Prix, right? Oh, the Grand Prix are nuts. Yeah, those are absolutely not. And, and it wasn’t long ago, I wanna say it was a 72. It was a Firebird and it was white. White with a 4 55 and an automatic, but it was a Firebird. It was not a Trans Am, but it was a 455. And I thought, I didn’t think that they built that.

I really didn’t. So I started looking it up and now they did. You could have had it. They built something like 1200 of them. We’re talking the Rockford Files Firebird, the entry level Firebird. It [00:47:00] was white, white, crazy color combination. You know, you don’t see cars like this, but I think you guys are on the right path.

When you’re trying to tell somebody, what kind of collector car should we buy? Chris, we can talk Ferrari all day long, but you’re right. Trying to get one of these things serviced, it’s going to put you in the poor house. Just the tires alone can put you in the poor house. You got to be really careful. You know, the Ferrari, I’m looking at the 456, 90s new millennium kind of car.

So it’s out of this conversation for the moment. But my God, are they a bargain? They’re a V12 front engine. And if you can find a stick shift, I like the stick shift. The price goes up quite a bit, but even the automatic, why not get the automatic? I come from L. A. Back there. It was all automatic. You wanted an automatic because you don’t want to be in traffic working that clutch all the time.

But the 4 56 is just under the radar. It has little inherent problems, but they’re all fixable. They’re all very, very fixable. And once you fix them. From what I understand, you’ve got a pretty bulletproof car. And in terms of being part of the Ferrari [00:48:00] family, they’re super, super cheap. There’s your odd ball for Ferrari.

I guess you have a three 48 is kind of an odd ball too. That I think slips away from even the three 55. It’s almost like the three 48 is kind of the forgotten little V8 child. The four 56 is kind of the same thing. Now going back. To the Pontiac, the Overbills, etc. Where’s that 326 HO? What, what, what is that?

You mean the GTO? No, no, no, no, no, no. It was the Tempest 326 HO. Nobody knows what this is. But you know, when you look closely, good old GM. It’s going to have a brother and that brother is going to be something from Chevrolet. Oh, could it be a Malibu? Could it be a Chevelle? A Malibu with a big butt? We don’t know.

You just really have to start digging if you’re not going to go pay the high dollar for a Trans Am or the high dollar for a Camaro Z28, something like that. Maybe I’m wrong because I’ve been watching the Trans Am, the prices are going up, but I think they’re still in the shadow of Camaro. I think you’re still getting a bargain for what you get [00:49:00] with the Trans Am with the Firebird.

And you think about it out of the gate, they were marketed to a more upscale crowd. So they had a few more amenities. They had a few more little niceties to them that made them just a little nicer than the Camaros. That makes any sense whatsoever.

Crew Chief Eric: So, as we’ve said before on this show, as the music changes, so do the cars.

Music changed in the mid 70s into the height of disco, so came the malaise era. Don, would you like to briefly define for folks that might be hearing this term for the first time what exactly that means?

Don Weberg: You know, honestly, I have trouble defining it. I really do, because I own all of them. To me, they’re mainstream cars, man.

I knock him. I drive him every day. I thought it was French for shit. Isn’t that ? Am I did, did I read that wrong? Uh, you’re probably correct. You’re probably correct. It’s resume.

Mark Shank: That’s what resume. It’s French for, shit.

Don Weberg: resume. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: That being said, it covers the period between, what is it, 76 and like 82 or 83.

Right.

Don Weberg: Let me just 70, [00:50:00] 73 for American Cars. Let me just bring it around the corner to you. Anything. Built in the era of Corinthian leather. Oh, nice. The Mala Cup, , speaking, which I, I really think the Cordoba is the one that kicked that off. I, I really do. And when you start talking Cordoba, it’s like, okay, that’s it.

We’re going out for cheap drinks and cheap, what do they call polyester suits? You know? I mean that’s, that’s what it’s all about. My family, my leisure suit

Crew Chief Eric: is legit. There’s so much blah. But so much kind of awesome during this period, because these are the, I think the most unloved cars on the planet, like across every brand, like everybody went through this period of just like, it’s like the dark ages.

Mark Shank: The most important thing on the Malaysia is going to be what state you live in and what emissions regulation control framework do you live under? Because if you can just rip all the reverse vacuum crap out and get away with that, then you can have some really [00:51:00] cool. Really awesome cars. Like if you’re in California, like skip ahead in the podcast, just go like forward 10 minutes.

Crew Chief Eric: That applies to all vehicles except for the Mustang too. I just want to highlight that. That is not good anywhere.

Mark Shank: Some good ones, not all.

Don Weberg: Oh, man, two men. I just say anything that’s good enough for Farrah Fawcett is good enough for me. Okay. That’s all

Mark Shank: including Vietnamese anti aircraft guns.

Crew Chief Eric: This is also the era where these unloved cars also picked up notoriety and fame through Hollywood.

If you think about it, there’s more cars from this era that are showcased in TV and film than probably any other.

Don Weberg: If you remember, if you go back to I Dream of Jeannie, which is 60s. They all had Pontiacs in that show. If you watch Bewitched, it was all Chevrolet. You know, it’s all about product placement.

And yeah, that kind of had its beginnings right there in the 60s. But yeah, in the 70s, they [00:52:00] hit it hard. They really had to, you know, to Mark’s point, if you lived in California, just skip over and go, because they had so many restrictions. New York, I think, was the same way. You know, one reason I love these cars, a lot of people ask me about the Caprice.

In fact, one of my wife’s friends asked me straight up at dinner one night. So, your Caprice. Yeah. Why do you have that car?

You know, I

Don Weberg: mean, it was, it was just a ban, you know, there was no sugar coating at all. And for me, it was out of your dirty mouth lady.

Chris Bright: And on that note, come on, it was a Will Smith reference. Come on. One cocktail, one cocktail,

Don Weberg: one half of the groaning guy, man. And just so you know, I’m drinking coffee. So if I start talking more and more fast, you can just, Do this and I’ll understand. Okay. But now one reason I love those cars. And this, this sounds like some sort of cop out, I guess.

And I don’t mean it to, I really, really do admire these cars from this era. We went from four [00:53:00] 55, four 26, four 27, all these wonderful engines having billions of horsepower to the four 55 was reduced to 230 horsepower. I mean, it was just pathetic, but. Remember, they had to adjust the way they were taking their horsepower figures, they could no longer rate it from the flywheel, they had to rate it from the wheels, so that lowered everything.

Then, you had the lower compression, then you had the gas, then you had this. Those cars to me are like the lab rats, you know, to me, they’re like the heroes of the animal kingdom, because these are the ones who, you know, we don’t have horsepower, we can’t go fast. Yeah. Smoking a bandit is hysterical to me because he’s doing burnouts and he’s doing this and he’s doing that.

That car does not move like a Lamborghini. I’m sorry, it just does not. And if you’ve driven one, you know, the first time I drove and it was beautiful. It was a 78. It was a full bandit package car. Eric, you know, my Fiat, the guy wanted to trade for my Fiat. That was his [00:54:00] thought plus cash. And I, you know, I’m thinking, oh my God, this is my shot to get a Trans Am, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I drove it and I remember thinking, okay, so it’s a little bit quicker than my Fiat. And I’m gonna get a lot worse gas mileage. I gotta tell you too, and I hate admitting this because I do love Trans Ams. You close the door, it sounds like a busboy lost his tray. The T Tops, the guy admitted to me, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t bring it out in the range of the T Tops, they’re gonna leak like a sim.

Oh, my Fiat is a full convertible, it doesn’t leak. Seriously, it doesn’t leak. And no, my Fiat does not leak oil, but his leak that where the engine and the transmission come together, there’s a main rear

Crew Chief Eric: main seal,

Don Weberg: rear main seal. So I was going to have to fix that at some point. I’m thinking, Holy cow, this poor car is just a beast, you know?

So needless to say, the Fiat is still with me. My point is this is where we started going from substance to style, big screaming chicken, and let’s take your Torino. You know, you like the muscle one. You’re like the one in Clint Eastwood’s movie. And I love that car too, but that car can lay it down pretty [00:55:00] authoritatively.

Starsky and Hutch was another funny show because there’s no way that Torino could have done half the stuff that it wanted to do. It had a lot of stuff. You had the wood grain dashboard. You had the beautiful grain of the vinyl seats. You had a vinyl top. You had all these wonderful things. Why? Because we can’t give you a horsepower, so we’re gonna give you not only the malaise.

You know, it’s funny, whenever I write about these cars, I love calling them the Baroque period. , because you have so much baroque going on. It’s a thickness, it’s a heaviness. It, you know, it’s like you’re, you’re in some sort of a Frank Cannon TV show and everybody’s dressed in these drapes. It, it just broke.

I’ll shut up. Did say broke. I know that’s what you guys want me to do.

Crew Chief Eric: Broke for sure. Brad broke for. broke.

Rob Parr: He actually started. The direction was going to luxury. Luxury was where they were emphasizing. Look at the Corvettes in the late seventies. There were dogs, but they’re becoming more collectible.

There’s a certain thing about them. You’re saying there’s a [00:56:00] certain feel you get about him that I guess that it’s a charming thing about it.

Don Weberg: I got to learn how to talk more succinctly like him. But

Crew Chief Eric: I have to agree with Rob because I have grown a newfound appreciation for the C3 Corvettes. It has to do with something he said earlier, which is people modifying the cars.

And in stock trim, I’m not a big fan of the C3. I think it’s plain, especially the long with the long butt versus the Bob tail 427s. Those were cool. So you look at the long tail cars, And I’ve grown more attracted to them because people are doing things like removing the Chrome or lowering them or using modern wheels and adding modern touches to them.

And now it’s like, that’s a cool car. Like that’s really neat. Yes. It’s still 6. 6 liters of 200 horsepower of awesome. Not, but, but you can fix that with modern technology. You know, you put a sniper on there from Holly and suddenly you wake that thing up, right. Or, or whatever cams and [00:57:00] exhaust, and you’re making 500 horsepower out of a motor that made 180.

You said, you know, it was like this and that, and the animal kingdom and everything between, I hate to say these cars were neutered. That’s really the term is they were. So it’s unfortunate. Everybody did it. But the problem is, Your big four barrel 6. 6 liter Trans Am going down the highway got roasted by the 1100 cc Honda CVCC precursor to the Civic or a GTI or all these hot hatchbacks that were suddenly showing up in the later part of that era.

So. Now it’s like apples and chainsaws when we’re talking about the malaise period, because there’s, there’s so much to choose from. What’s considered a collector during this period, right? A lot of, a lot of it’s junk.

Mark Shank: And the car that wasn’t the malaise car, the nine 30 turbo, which you used to be able to get 70s, nine 30.

For under 50 grand, no problem. I feel horrible. I had my friend’s dad try to sell me his 1977 930 turbo for 25 grand like 10 years [00:58:00] ago and I feel like a complete moron that I didn’t just buy it.

Crew Chief Eric: But you know what ruined the 930 but also helped the 930 at the same time because you saw a drastic price increase in those cars even when they were available was the introduction of the slant nose.

Because suddenly everybody wanted one because the slant nose was the coolest thing on the block. Nobody had ever seen anything like that before. Yeah.

Mark Shank: I mean, yes. If you looked at that within the context of the timeline, but like, I mean, you can look at the nine 30 turbo prices. I’m bringing trailer the price history that goes back.

Some of the best ones depends on your definition. Best. You could absolutely pick up a set of malaise era, late seventies, mid late seventies, nine 30, that had a slant nose kid on it. And somebody had just coped out in the eighties or nineties. But then obviously precipitously dropped in value. You can see price transactions in just two years ago in 2020, 2019 of those things going for 46 for, you know, 48, 000.

But the market recently is really [00:59:00] controlled. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s 80 grand. I mean, there’s

Chris Bright: some amazing cars from that era. If you look in Europe and other places, and I was talking about you leave

Don Weberg: Detroit, you’ll be okay.

Chris Bright: Yeah, yeah. . So you know, and I was talking about nine 20 eights. I bought a 9, 19 85, 9 28, and I drove it 175,000 miles and it was my daily driver.

Its cost of operation was less than a Honda Civic. I actually costed it out and that is. It’s a hand built supercar. It had a Mercedes. That was

Mark Shank: the first year of the 32 valves in America?

Chris Bright: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Very good. Well done. Five liter. And, um. Yeah. They

Mark Shank: didn’t get that in Europe for a few years.

Chris Bright: Yeah. I had an automatic, so it was a transaxle.

It was a Mercedes Benz unit in the back. I could fit two bicycles in the back, make Costco runs. Leather seating, powerful, made all the right noises, drove like a dream and I recently had a chance, uh, I’m friends with Keith [01:00:00] Martin. He bought one down it and I flew down and picked it up and drove it up the coast and fell in love with it all over again.

It’s, you can get one of those for 20 grand. And Get a good one. Make sure you’ve got someone that you can take it to who really knows what they’re talking about with those. And they are bulletproof because they were built to replace the 911. They were horribly over engineered. Their oil changes. The recommended service was every 6, 000 miles, every 10, 000 kilometers.

They over engineered this thing. So it really lasts. It’s a solid car. You know, I can’t emphasize enough. It was completely hand built in a supercar. And I remember seeing him on the cover of road and track. And when I picked one up for 13, 000, I couldn’t believe my luck and amazing.

Crew Chief Eric: The thing about that lineage, right?

Because everybody, you know, nowadays likes to say, well, the nine 24 is a Porsche. Sure. Cause it’s got a badge in the hood, but it was supposed to be a Volkswagen and then politics got in the way. And then it evolved 28, and so [01:01:00] on. The thing about it is The

Chris Bright: 9. 28 came way before any of those, by the way. It was in the

Crew Chief Eric: early 70s, yeah.

Yeah, the bastard metamorphosis of the pacer, right? Let’s say where the 9. 28 got its inspiration from. That aside That aside That aside, what I’m getting at here is They share a lot of parts with Volkswagens. So the people that had 944s, as an example, that kept them affordable, that didn’t become the mechanic’s dream, and you were paying their mortgage through every week you needed to take them to shop, you started to realize, well, hey, this part can be cross matched on a Scirocco.

Which is the same part on a rabbit. And it’s this and that, or, Oh, this one’s off a dasher, like all this weird stuff, because they grabbed from the same parts bin, like I know they try to play off today, the common platform and all this stuff between VW Porsche and Audi that’s been going on for a very long time.

So to your point, the nine 28 can be really affordable when you understand that part of that motor is derived [01:02:00] from a Volkswagen, right. And all these other parts come from different places. There are things that are used. It’s true. It’s right.

Chris Bright: You’re exactly correct on 948 is a kind of its own beast, but it isn’t as expensive to maintain.

I think that’s the real point. And the parts are pretty plentiful. There’s a lot of great suppliers. They sold a lot of them. I

Crew Chief Eric: mean, it was supposed to be the next big GT car, right? It was supposed to be. Like I said, replace them. 20

Mark Shank: years. It’s been stolen for almost 20 years, 77 to 94 or something. I mean, it’s a long time.

Well,

Don Weberg: you got to think too, as a marketing standpoint, the 928 suddenly lured people who might have gone to Mercedes or BMW. All of a sudden, they’re going to a Porsche because they have a proper GT car. This is a car you can take to the country club. This is a car you can take to the boss’s party and not look like you’re some sort of rebel rouser The 928 really opened up a whole new door for Porsche.

Frankly, I thought it was the best Porsche that was ever made. I really did [01:03:00] kind of going back a little bit by naming off the 930, the 928, and even the little 944, 924, let’s take that Malaise era. You’ve got some bright spots. Take my little Baroque cars, like your Cordobas, like your Caprices, whatever.

Those are okay. They are what define the Malaise era. But then you have these bright spots that were born, like your 928, like your 944, like your 930 Turbo. These were cars that came out and blew people’s minds. They were, whoa, wait, wait, wait. You got a Porsche that does 0 to 60 in five. Come on, who does 0 to 60 in 5?

My Trans Am takes 10 seconds. Well, yeah, that’s because it is what it is, you know, where the bright spots in the Malaysia era and going back to the main point, if you’re buying a first collector car, we can’t really in good conscience say, Oh, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Go go buy a 930. Oh, yeah, you know, pop out 100 grand, 200 grand, whatever they’re going for.

Now, the 928, I think is a great place to go. Because again, bias, I love that car. But it is one [01:04:00] of those bright spots. You know, this is going way to the extreme. Kuntosh was born right at the beginning of the Mali’s era. Look at them now.

Chris Bright: One of my other recommendations, like for the, what should I buy is a Lotus Esprit, a Lotus Esprit.

The early ones are. Pretty cheap still. They’re like 25 K and they look, they have Kuntosh S looks. I mean, I think they’re all that box. They’re like a baby Kuntosh James Bond one. And the other one that I really love out of this era, that is really affordable and probably one of my top picks for people who are looking for like something to have an experience of a collector and classic car is a gen one.

RX seven, they came out in the late seventies. Those were. Cool cars. I think it’s still a great design today. The rotary engine, they’re really weird, but man, they rip, they are cool. They sound cool. They are fun. Get a good one and you can get a good one for under [01:05:00] 10 K. You will get the full experience and you’ll show up at cars and coffee and you’ll have lots of people talking to you.

Don Weberg: Absolutely. Seek out the bright spots. You know, I can talk about Cordova all day long, but what were the bright spots? What were those little glimmering, you know, moments of, you know, you brought up the RX 7. Holy cow, what a car that was. I mean, that was just bam. There’s style, there’s flash, there’s power.

What a great car.

Mark Shank: It’s a little cheating. It’s a little cheating in the sense that we’re like when we’re doing 90s cars, realizing that some of the best. 90s cars were made in 2000, 2001, 2002. And some of the best eighties cars were made in 79. It’s like, you can pull in the sob turbo. You can pull in the RX seven.

You, I mean, but those are eighties car spiritually. I agree with that. I have a hard time counting a first gen RX seven as a malaise car.

Chris Bright: It’s 77, man, like 1977. That’s the high. Yeah, but there’s this 79,

Don Weberg: 79. It’s the bright [01:06:00] spots. Look for the bright spots on being

Mark Shank: positive. I want to argue.

Rob Parr: Two men enter 75, 79.

Buick is when they came out with the regal turbo. Which eventually ran, became the Grand National. And that was the fastest car, fastest in the Corvette in 1986. And that

Don Weberg: builds perfectly, Mark, on what you were saying. Some of the cars from the 80s came from the 70s. Some of the cars from the 90s came from the 80s.

There’s that Buick that popped up. Yeah, all of a sudden it became an 80s icon with the Grand National and of course the GNX. You know, everyone knee jerk reacts to Grand National, and that’s fine. Then there’s the T Type, the little brother. Nobody even knows about the LeSabre T Type. And it’s a turbocharged T Type.

It had the little Grand National logo on it. It was all blacked out. It was just a bigger, more luxurious car. But this is a car that could still hustle from zero to 60 and right around six and a half seconds. Now, I don’t care who you’re talking to six and a half [01:07:00] seconds in the early, mid eighties, damn, that’s moving.

And you’re talking about a big grandpa

Crew Chief Eric: Buick. Don, I thought you were going to go at one. Point, you know, it’s the height of the malaise era. Maybe mention cars like the Stutz Bearcat. I mean, you can’t get classier than that. ,

Don Weberg: who doesn’t even love those cars? Those are the best. And I’ll tell you something, the la not that anybody cares.

I know. Here I go again. Me and my Elvis crap. But. The last photograph taken of Elvis Presley was him driving into his estate in his black Stutz Bearcat. I mean, there’s something to be said about that. They were the height of the Malays, you’re right. They were the absolute gaudiest, most baroque car you could possibly have.

The gauges were gold for crying out loud, you know. The trunk, Was fully lined in shag carpeting that matched your interior. I mean, it went on and on and on with these cars. Were they fast? Were they quick? No, they were typical GM body Monte

Crew Chief Eric: Carlo’s. I mean, they weren’t anything special.

Don Weberg: They were wheezing their way to 30 miles an hour and [01:08:00] you felt good when you got there and yet today people still like to make fun of them, but they’re slowly coming into their own.

And what I think is funny about that. The people I see who are most interested in them are in their late twenties, early thirties. I’m blown away by that. It’s not guys my age. I would love to have one, but I’m weird, but everybody I see who’s really interested in those cars, late twenties, early thirties, or maybe up to the mid thirties.

And that blows me away when you ask them, what is it about that car that you like? And it’s just what you said, Eric. Oh, it epitomizes that era. They’re

Chris Bright: buying them. Ironically. I think they are. I think you’re right. Chris, I aspire to be a pimp. So,

Mark Shank: I don’t know if you know this, but pimping ain’t easy.

Crew Chief Eric: I actually got to see one in person at the Peterson on a recent visit and it’s down in the vault.

And you know, I’ve always had a visit,

Chris Bright: a urinal,

Crew Chief Eric: but I will say this, it is gaudy in picture. And it’s [01:09:00] ostentatious in person. You’re just like, wow, this thing is ridiculous.

Don Weberg: And when you consider that car, I mean, pick a year that it would bill. Let’s just grab 1976, 70, 000, 70, 000 in 1976.

Yeah.

Don Weberg: You had to be Elvis Presley to afford this thing.

You were the only one who could afford it. Yeah. I mean, it’s astonishing the money that those cars commanded. And isn’t it funny that if I’m not mistaken, you know, Those cars were assembled in much of the way the Cadillac Elantra was put together. They were assembled here, sent over there, assembled over there, then sent back here and they were sold.

I mean, that’s a lot of money to be flying those cars back and forth. Now the Stutz is something else. It really is. That car was something else and it was, you’re right, it was the height of the And they’re cheap, you know, when you really think about it, they’re not all that much money.

Crew Chief Eric: I have one where I can

Mark Shank: add no sales on brain trailer.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s only one Italian car from this era that sticks out. Well, actually two, I will take that back. [01:10:00] One is the super plain Jane. It’s the Fiat one 31 and not the rally version of the Abarth. It’s the plain Jane one. If you dress that thing up, it’s actually really cool. Cool. People, ironically, to Chris’s point, would probably think it’s a Lada because it’s the other way around, you know, they copied the Fiat’s.

But the other one that’s understated was sold in United States and people might remember from the Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo movie is the launch of Beta Monte Carlo from 1978. I personally love that car. It’s that just miniature Ferrari, right? It’s more affordable. It is more obscure. It has a pretty decent following.

I’m sure Chris can probably back me up on that, but it’s a looker and it has that almost DeLorean kind of front end with the panda bear two tone grill and body work thing going on. I

Chris Bright: think they’re neat. They don’t appeal to me. I like the other launches, like the launch of Delta that comes along a little bit later.

Which we can get to, it’s on my list, but. Absolutely.

Crew Chief Eric: So we might as well [01:11:00] dive head first into the 80s, right? Let’s do it. The music changed yet again. I’m

Chris Bright: there for it. What era is the 80s?

Crew Chief Eric: We’re, we’re the digital era now. That’s where we are, at the beginnings of the digital era.

Chris Bright: When I look at the 80s, and again, I’m kind of going to focus more on the foreign, but I would say the C4 Corvette.

Yes. I’m a big fan. That’s my favorite Corvette bodies. I just, I really think that’s a, It’s a little plainer, but you know the things that I like out of the, and these are still reasonably affordable. It’s like the Acura NSX. What a car! Came out in the 80s. Formula One heritage. That’s when Honda was kicking ass in Formula One.

Really complex and interesting engines. I think they look great. They’re creeping up around 40 now, but that’s a lot of car for $40,000. I mean, a lot of car and I, I’d get one of those any day of the week, like a notch down from that is the lunch. Uh, Delta Intergra, which is [01:12:00] a hot hatch, one of the early hot hatches.

Really cool rally cars. Very cool engine. You don’t have

Crew Chief Eric: to buy the HF Integrale. You can buy the eight valve or some of the other ones like Chris Harris just bought one as a daily driver and you don’t need all the extra bluff and bluster. You can buy a plain Jane one like we’ve been talking about and they’re just as fun.

I think he said he spent like 8000 euros for it. I mean, what a car

Chris Bright: for that kind of money, that’s a very cool and very special car. So I’m all over that type of thinking, you know, getting those, uh, those 8, 000 cars in it. And I mentioned it kind of at the top of the show, but look at those Alfa Romeos from that era, the GTV six, the Milano’s and the 75s.

I mean, They might not be as beautiful in terms of their design or aesthetic. Like they may not like totally catch your eye, but there’s a lot of car under there. And if you want to spruce them up, you can put some kits on there to make them look like rally cars or some of the touring car series. Like they ate that [01:13:00] series up.

They were some of the hottest cars back then. So they’ve got a cool racing lineage. So, you know, the NSX though, I think out of this two, You’re from an affordability entry way into like a really, those are exotic cars.

Mark Shank: I thought we were doing

Chris Bright: eighties.

Mark Shank: And it was sold in America in 1990.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true. It did come out in the 90s.

I thought they came out in Japan. In Japan first.

Chris Bright: All right. Well, I’m

Mark Shank: up. I’m going to, I’m going to, I’m just going to give you a hard time. Your RX 7? Not good enough. Not

Chris Bright: good enough.

Mark Shank: I

Chris Bright: hate you. I’m going home.

Don Weberg: Eric, I think you’ve got to give Chris and Mark a show. Yeah, he got a good Chris and Marcus show because that’s right there.

People would pay to see that one

Crew Chief Eric: behind the scenes on Patreon for sure. But I’ll say this, there are a couple of cars that springboard me into the eighties and they’re not what you’re thinking. And I’ll just throw these out there and look for some church nods as collector cars, the Ford Capri and the Opel Manta.

Also kind of [01:14:00] forgotten cars because they’re European cars sold here, you know, Ford people go forward, Ford, it’s not the same Ford UK versus for Germany versus the U S I think those are cool cars, but we are getting into the boxy cars with round headlights era, which are starting to catch on. And I have to pose this question, the Mark one GTI, is it a classic or is it still just a shit box?

Mark Shank: Classic. It has to be a classic.

Rob Parr: You know how much a Mark 1 GTI goes for now? It’s insane

Mark Shank: these days. Too much. I mean, I’m not going to buy one. You know how

Rob Parr: much they were going for? You know how much it costs to buy a decent one now? But when you,

Crew Chief Eric: I know, and I’ve seen them on Bring a Trailer, but here’s the thing being VW, Porsche, Audi family, I get into an original GTI and it does put a smile on my face.

And I walk away from it going, it’s still the same shit box. It was 30 years ago. It didn’t get better with age. There are better GTIs later. The Mark II is a thousand times better a car than the Mark I, but this nostalgia [01:15:00] thing is driving the price up of the Mark I’s. I would say the Scirocco is more of a collector car than the GTI is.

Chris Bright: I was just going to throw that one out there, man. That I love those Shiroccos. I think those are cool cars

Crew Chief Eric: and they’re the same chassis. I just got to throw it out there. I had one

Rob Parr: of the Shiroccos were incredible. I had a second gen,

Crew Chief Eric: but the second gens were awesome, but they were still carry over chassis, unless you had a 16 valve and that’s a whole nother story.

A

Don Weberg: car that we’ve kind of overlooked here that I mean, they’re kissing cousins visually. Uh, I know where you’re going. Oh, where am I going?

Crew Chief Eric: I know where you’re going. The Audi coup

Don Weberg: gt Actually, no, but yes, you’re correct. You’re correct. Yeah. I, you know, wasn’t trying to be nice to you guys. I’m trying to be nice.

I’m letting you handle what are the time, the Audi VW stuff, you know? I figure I’ll let Chris handle the Italian stuff, you know? No, where I was gonna go was the Isuzu Impulse,

Crew Chief Eric: another two Jaro car. Yep. Yep. Yeah, which little, little known fact that was [01:16:00] supposed to be the third gen Scirocco and it was rejected design for Volkswagen.

Rob Parr: Mistake, mistake.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know. The Corrado is a way better car.

Mark Shank: Corrado’s is the nineties car. And it was totally one of my nineties recommendations.

Crew Chief Eric: Believe me, it came out in 1989 with the G 60, but you know, what? It was counting.

Rob Parr: Don was going to talk about the Shelby GHS. The, the Chrysler,

Mark Shank: the Omni,

Rob Parr: the little

Mark Shank: Dodge

Don Weberg: Omni Shelby.

Yeah. Well, and don’t forget, they didn’t just do it to the Omni, they also did it to the little charger. They had that little fast charger back then. Yeah. Yeah. And then they have the, they have the GLH and then the G-L-H-S-G-L-H stood for goes like hell. Right. The S was goes like hell some more. So those were the ones that were really modified by Shelby.

What they built. God, you talk about rare. They built what? 500 of them? 1500.

Rob Parr: You don’t see any, you don’t see them anymore.

Crew Chief Eric: But to your point, there’s a lot of cars like [01:17:00] that that are sleepers during this era because the GLHS packed a punch in a small package. I mean, granted, The base motor was a rabbit engine.

They were collaborating with Volkswagen at that time. There’s a lot of similarities. There’s also cars that people salivate over from that time period that they don’t realize are super rare either. To your point, 500 GLHS is let’s look at the UR Quattro. Right. You were talking about the launch of Delta before I owned one of these cars.

We actually had two of them over the years, and they only brought 627 of those to the United States. So they are ultra rare. And that was within a three year span. But you want to original quattro, go get a 4, 000. They made a billion of those, but if you want something super cool, go get a quantum. Synchro station wagon.

That

Crew Chief Eric: is awesome. That’s a collector car that nobody even thinks about. And that’s an Audi underneath. Mark is holding his head in his hands going, oh my god.

Don Weberg: Is that car really Volkswagen though?

Crew Chief Eric: The [01:18:00] Quantum was bodied by Carmen and VW like all of them were, but it’s a 4000 underneath. It’s the same power plant, drivetrain, everything.

Don Weberg: Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Don Weberg: Okay. Interesting.

Crew Chief Eric: And the quantum became the facade. I don’t know why that whole period, the rabbit and the quantum, they made all these weird names up. I kind of wish quantum had stuck around, but maybe, maybe the EV versions we’ll, we’ll get it.

Don Weberg: Shifting, you know, shifting gears here. And again, one car I really did want to bring up that is just starting again, as the younger people who are interested in them, the Lincoln mark seven, I know.

Eric, here I go with the Lincolns, but I am a Lincoln junkie. I love these cars. The Mark VII was really, really something in this day. It was introduced late, late 83 for the 1984 market. If you look at it, it has the flush headlamps. No other car had the flush headlamps in 1984. They were not available.

Chrysler will tell you they were the first one to have it. It’s not true. It was actually Lincoln. The doors, they were cut into the roof, kind of like a 63 Stingray. There were all kinds of advancements that. [01:19:00] Mark seven brought to the program, they had a console, they had true bucket seats, they had a floor shift, you know, this for an American luxury car was really, really, I mean, frankly put, it was just mind blowing, because here you had everything people loved about the European car, the bucket seats, the floor shifts, the doors in the in the roof, the flush headlamps, all these things added up.

Damn, I mean, Lincoln really knocked it out of the park. And yet, yeah. Not many people really noticed you were a Lincoln guy or a Ford guy. You looked at it and said, wow, this is the wave of the future. And sure enough, if you watch Ford’s history, if you watch all American car history, they followed the Lincoln mark seven and nobody wants to give that car credit, but that is one hell of a robust car, really a robust car,

Rob Parr: five liter engine.

Don Weberg: Yeah, they had the five liter, the three Oh two, but for 1984 only, they also offered a diesel, which was built by BMW. And that was to meet the cafe standards here. We’re talking about the [01:20:00] GLHS as one of 500 or one of 1, 500. I forget how many they built, but it’s the odd ball of the odd ball family. That BMW diesel six cylinder in the mark seven is always the oddball of the family.

I want to say they did import something like 1500 and it was literally just to meet whatever the federal government required for cafe standards. And that was the whole reason they did that. And the funny thing is they’re not worth any more. In fact, people prefer the 302 because they’re more familiar with it.

They can get parts for the five liter. They don’t know what a BMW diesel is. They’re not comfortable with that. So even though it’s much, much more rare. People don’t care

Crew Chief Eric: could potentially be a collector item, strange and rare, sometimes equal that person going, well, that’s really cool. And I want to have 12 of those,

Don Weberg: right?

I think that’s something to do with collectibles to as collectors. One little, uh, trait collectors have is they all want that something nobody else has. And that’s where these cars start to become popular, like the [01:21:00] Lincoln with the BMW diesel, that Audi, they only imported 532 of them, whatever. Unless you’re an Audi guy, you’re not going to know about this thing.

You know, it’s just one of those off the radar cars. And yet, because it’s off the radar, you can probably buy one pretty cheaply.

Crew Chief Eric: Your Quattro is not so much anymore. Those have gone. Way through the roof

Don Weberg: and see, and that’s the funny thing. The Mark sevens are doing the same thing. I’m looking at these Mark sevens and they’re maybe not like that quattro, but they are really starting to climb up.

But anyway, I think that is a pretty important car. And that is a car that actually, when I do meet some younger people who are interested in buying some sort of a collective car, but granted I have weird tastes, I’m not into going 500 miles an hour. I’m not into, you know, I like a car that I can get in, just enjoy.

You know, you, you want to cruise to the beach. You want to cruise to the mountains. You want to cruise to your local resort to the car. You can do it in, um, you know, if I want to have a site, I’ll go find an in law somewhere, you know,

Crew Chief Eric: So what else is sitting in the eighties that isn’t already considered a collector, things like the UR Quattro, we already talked about the DeLorean.

It’s [01:22:00] already really a collector car. What are some of these wolves and sheep’s clothing that are still sitting out? There that a first time collector could be interested in? Is there something we’re overlooking?

Mark Shank: I mean, I, I gave Chris a hard time earlier, but I go back to the 85 9 28 just because it is a really great early example of relatively modern technology with the 32 valve, five liter V eight.

They are underappreciated, undervalued.

Rob Parr: During this time, I wanted to mention to you also that. Joint ventures started off like Callaway with the Corvette. There were certain models that were done aftermarket that they brought on. I think it was a Chrysler had a relationship with Maserati. They had a, I can’t remember the name of the car, but the TC, there you go.

Thank you.

Don Weberg: And they didn’t use Corinthian leather.

Crew Chief Eric: I want to drive one of those. I’ve looked at them and those are another underappreciated car, right? Motor by Maserati, drivetrain by then designed sort of by pinning Farina. And then Chrysler had their magic in there. Thanks. And they came as a manual. So I’m like, I want [01:23:00] to be

Don Weberg: careful of that though.

Be careful of that. Cause some of them had, it was the head by Maserati, but the actual engine, everything else was Chrysler Mitsubishi. So you want to be careful. You’ve got to get the actual one with the head by Maserati. And the five speed manual transmission. If you want to go that route building on that one, the Cadillac Elante, that’s kind of coming into its own, but one car that a lot of people forget about the Buick Riata,

Crew Chief Eric: the little kind of bathtub thing,

Don Weberg: I think that’s one of those people are going to wake up and realize, Oh my God, what a cool car this is.

I don’t know if it’s going to go through the roof and price, but it is something that’s overlooked. You know, it’s in the shadow of the Elante. It’s in the shadow of the TC. And I don’t think Buick people really got into them that much, because it was kind of out of the Buick scope. It wasn’t what your traditional Buick buyer would go look for in a showroom.

Oh, I’m going to go buy a 2 seater, you know, coupe or a 2 seater convertible. That’s not your traditional Buick buyer. But I think that’s another one.

Rob Parr: I would agree. I would also say the Pontiac [01:24:00] Fiero. Yes. Brad’s favorite car. And

Mark Shank: we should have had a Deadpool on how long it took for the Fiero to come up.

Chris Bright: Of course,

Rob Parr: of course. .

Chris Bright: Well, I, I, I’ve got one that’s Fiero adjacent but is actually a good car. And that’s the to Toyota MR two. Yes. Um, yes.

Mark Shank: First gen is, is a great little

Chris Bright: car. Cool car, great car. I mean, if you want a

Crew Chief Eric: reliable X one nine, that’s the thing to buy is a M two. Yeah. And you could get it with a factory supercharger as well.

Chris Bright: I think that’s a great car, but I don’t want to crap on the Fiero. It’s like a DeLorean in that I feel like that was a really ambitious and important car, but not well executed. The running gear just wasn’t as good as it should have been for what they were trying to do. I mean, the last couple of years of the Fiero, they really sorted it out.

Crew Chief Eric: In the 90s, they got it right. Yeah, exactly.

Don Weberg: Well, and let’s remember one thing about the Fiero, like I think Mark was just saying, The last couple of years of Fiero, they were getting it right. They were getting it so right, in [01:25:00] fact, that Chevrolet essentially told General Motors, you know, this is not the kind of club room we can have two seater sport cars now, is it?

So Fiero was getting so good that Corvette was starting to get a little paranoid about it. You know, it was cheaper, it was fun, it was something everybody could afford. No, it wasn’t going to move like a Corvette yet. Give it time. They were working on turbocharging. They were working on all wheel drive. So this was going to become an animal of a car.

We’re going to get rid of it because sales aren’t that good. Oh yeah, right. Sure. Sales aren’t that good. Mind you, it’s outselling Corvette like three to one.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s a lot going on in the eighties, right? And to the point of the episode we did with Mark, we discovered that a lot of really great nineties cars Came from the 80s, right?

They were born in the 80s and they made their way like the Fiero, same kind of deal. So

Mark Shank: matured

Crew Chief Eric: the, exactly. They matured like fine wines, but one thing we’ve kind of overlooked, we talked a lot about Italian cars, talking a lot about domestic cars, German cars, [01:26:00] you know, in there, we, we focus a lot on VW, Porsche.

Porsche, Audi, not a ton of BMW because a lot of BMWs have already become collector cars. What we haven’t touched on except for that RX 7 and the NSX are Japanese cars. They were late to blossom. They were late to the game, right? It took them a while to get ahead of steam in the eighties. I think there’s some really neat cars in there, but they.

fall into the hot hatch category, like the starlet and the FX 16 and other cars like that where they’re kind of obscure. And when you see one, you get excited. You’re like, wait, is that a Fiesta? No. Oh wait, no, it’s not. It’s it’s a Corolla. Right. But I think they were still coming into their own at that time period, unless there’s something that really jumps out during the eighties.

Other than the 80, 86, I mean, but that’s already a collector car.

Don Weberg: Well, I, I think one thing we could all say, I, I think we can agree on, you know, let’s face it, BMW, the Ultimate Performance Machine, Dotson Nissan came out with the Maxima and they started marketing it as the four-door sports car. And it had the 300 [01:27:00] ZDNA, it had the engine, it had a lot of the chassis components.

It, and if you ever drove a Maxima, any of them. They really were something else. They were absolutely amazing cars. When you pit them against the more expensive BMWs, it was pretty amazing what a bargain you were getting. Yeah, I’d like to throw the Maxima out there.

Mark Shank: I love Maximas. I grew up learning to drive on my friend’s Ford DST, the little label they put on the side of all the Maximas.

But front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, it’s a little apples and oranges from a platform perspective, in my humble opinion.

Don Weberg: No, you’re wrong.

Mark Shank: Fair enough, fair enough. So much good fruit, right? We’ve talked about the first gen RX7, you know, I think that really matured in the eighties. Obviously, we’re going to see the sales volume where you’re going to be able to buy one of those, the Celica.

If you’re up for that kind of challenge, I think it could be a lot of fun.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s one more, and I don’t know that it’s super desirable yet. But sort of is part of the reason people shy away from them is because they’re a little [01:28:00] strange compared to their cousins, the civic and that’s the CRX. So even though they’re very similar vehicles, their DNA internally is different.

Like some things people don’t know their early CRX is the motor spins backwards and the civic spins the way we all traditionally do it. There’s all these oddities with the CRX and people go after the later ones, the Gen twos and obviously Their early roach looking civics that came out in the nineties.

Those are more desirable for autocross and track and things like that. But those first gen CRXs, they’re really kind of awesome cars. I had the privilege of driving one that was modified for pro solo. It was a fantastic vehicle and they get forgotten. Oh yeah. The CRX forgot about that car goes back to the point of the Japanese at that time, I think we’re still coming into their own and didn’t come into their own until the nineties.

So maybe we need to cross that threshold and now kind of quickly discuss some of the cars, maybe we didn’t talk about during your episode, Mark in the nineties.

Mark Shank: Sure. If I’m giving, you know, legitimate advice, someone getting [01:29:00] into this. Ridiculous hobby. You do have to kind of think a little bit about goals.

You know, what are your goals to yourself? Are you getting into this to enjoy a car, but like you ultimately have some longer term goals, so you want something that is either going to at the very least hold its value, if not growing value so that you can turn this around over time and grow the amount of money you’re investing in cars.

I personally did that. You know, I buy a car that either appreciated it or didn’t, at least didn’t depreciate. I paid off. I take that, I roll it into the next car. And now I could buy a car that was twice as expensive, you know, from that perspective, you do have to maybe factor in some of these other considerations.

This is your first car and you have some other kind of more aspirational goals. Then you do have to think about kind of where the market is in what’s becoming popular. Then once you get into the nineties. It’s a really interesting market because the nineties teenagers are starting to come into their peak earning potential from a macroeconomic [01:30:00] perspective.

Right. And so the values of cars traditionally kind of track relative to the earning potential of the age that that person was 18 years old or whatever. And so that’s why you, you see cars peak and then start to trail off. You’re just starting to get into that. We’ve talked about good options. I kind of personally disagree on, on the nine six eight perspective.

I’d like that car. I see it as like a really, the most mature nine 44, if you’re not going the turbo route. So you have to think about how much the car market has changed in the last couple of years. You used to be able to pick up that three 48 for below 50 K that four 56. I think that Don was talking about earlier.

Although any ones that would have been in your 50k range were automatic 456s, so meh. If I had to land on a recommendation, your first car collector. We’ve talked about it a little bit already. I really like the Corrado. It’s a very 90s look. It really is the epitome of the 90s. You can put [01:31:00] some turbo twist wheels on it.

The bolt pattern fits. It’s a cool car. I’m a little actually personally impartial towards the supercharged four cylinder. The VR six is more valuable in the market. Even today in this kind of crazy market. If you look at bringing trailer prices, which are always kind of inflated, you can find a better deal than bringing a trailer.

If you’re willing to work your market and work your area, take your time and shop for something. They’ve been selling Corrado’s. You know, they have, I think, three transactions this year that are all like sub 20 grand. And those are VR sixes and some other things. And so I’m going way below the 50 K target.

You know, I’m thinking about myself when I was 27 years old and I was first buying my first collector car. I went with an 80s car. I got it in a really nice 85 Carrera 911, but that was back when everybody hated the 80s 911s. I got it for 20 grand and it was an amazing car and amazing condition. And the guy had a ton of money into it.

You’ll find a [01:32:00] very passionate Corrado owners that spent an irrational amount of money on their car in the 90s. If I had to pick one, that’s, that’s probably one that I, that I could lean on. There are a ton of others. As I said earlier, don’t be afraid of being basic. Don’t be afraid of a Fox body Mustang.

If that’s what you like, you can find somebody that somebody dropped the fortune in, you know, you’ll still get beat by Tesla at the drag strip, but it’s really cool. And a lot of fun. There’s a lot of, a lot of different options out there.

Chris Bright: Oh, I already gave you the NSF early

Mark Shank: your best eighties car. I

Chris Bright: got time shame by time.

Cop

Don Weberg: mark. I’m cop. I have that great game,

Mark Shank: Eric. I’m,

Don Weberg: I’m telling you, Eric, you’ve got a fortune in Mark and Chris. You have a fortune, give them a show on a

Mark Shank: goldmine.

Don Weberg: Oh my God, I can promote the heck out of this thing. Are you kidding me? This is going to be brilliant. I mean, Mark is even drinking over there.

He can’t believe some of the crap that Chris is coming up with. He’s just drinking. He’s like, I can’t [01:33:00] take any more of this crap. I’m going

Chris Bright: to

Don Weberg: give him a

Chris Bright: spit take now. So start drinking. I have two in the very, very, very different cars that keep my attention from the nineties. Do you remember the Ford Thunderbird SC, the supercharge?

That was on my list. Yes. Sorry, I ripped.

Mark Shank: Uncle had

Chris Bright: one of those. The thunder chicken. The thunder chicken. My brother had one and he never let me drove it, the jerk. But what a car. What?

Don Weberg: Remember, remember that car had a sister, the Cougar XR7. Again, if you’re seeking Ford, you’re going to pay a little more money.

But if you know what to look for in a Mercury, you can get the same car.

Mark Shank: They made a five liter version of that, which you can find for like 5 in a McDonald’s burger these

Chris Bright: days. Yeah. No, just go rip the engine out and put it in something like drop it into something else. And it’ll like blow your mind.

Great, great, great car. He also had a Pontiac, like he had some sported up Grand Prix. And I can’t remember what the bottle number was for that. Hold on. If you’re in the nineties, [01:34:00] supercharger, the SSE.

Don Weberg: The Grand Prix also had a really special car from McLaren. It was the McLaren ASD Grand Prix, and it was a turbocharged.

It was essentially a much more handsome, much more comfortable version of what a Grand National might’ve been. Very rare. Very few people even know what they are. Yeah, they’ve got flared out hips over the wheels. They’re a little bit bigger looking, a little chunkier. I wonder, Chris, could that have been it?

Or did you have the Supercharged?

Chris Bright: It wasn’t a McLaren, but it was the, someone said it. I heard it. I just forgot the name. Robin. SSEI?

Don Weberg: The Supercharged SSE?

Chris Bright: Great car. Really great car.

Crew Chief Eric: GXP model as well, wasn’t there during that time period? I think so. The GXP, I’m

Chris Bright: sorry, yeah. The SSE was the Bonneville. The GXP was the, yeah.

Right. Actually, the one that I would really point people towards is a Gen 1 Lotus Elise.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Chris Bright: Generally think that’s one of the all time greats. But

Crew Chief Eric: they didn’t sell those here. You have to import those. And a lot of people, you and I know what they look like, but they’re not the ones.

Chris Bright: Because the time is, [01:35:00] the clock has run out.

You can bring them in without penalty. A guy brought one in from England. He was a Holy crud. I’ll never forget that car. The handling, you know, it’s got a Toyota engine. I just think it’s a beautiful, beautiful car. And also it was the prototype for the Tesla roadster, you know, they kind of built. Right.

Crew Chief Eric: See, but I would, I would take a step back.

And if I’m going pure nineties Lotus, I would look for the last. of the line before the Elise came out, the Elan, which is what they kind of spun off of. And the Elans are kind of wedgy and have that 80s shape to them, but they’re also really kind of cool. And there were some NGs and Opals that were very similar as well.

And if you remember, there was a commercial in the early days of the line. Kind of the internet. There was this guy and he would, you know, spin the car into the parking spot. And it was in this little Opel convertible. And I’m not talking about like the Vauxhall VXR and the Opel that became the solstice and all that precursors to those cars in the [01:36:00] generation of the late Elans and stuff.

Those are pretty neat cars that could be really collectible and very forgotten if you’re looking British.

Chris Bright: Yeah, I think that’s great. I’m pushing back a little bit on what you were saying. Like they’d lost their way a little bit

and

Chris Bright: like the, at least just like brought them right back to what Colin, what it should

Crew Chief Eric: have been.

Yeah, exactly.

Chris Bright: You’re lightweight, low power, but unbelievable handling. That was a really cool car. And I’ll throw in last mark can call me on this. It was the, I certainly will. What year was the Meco or whatever they call that?

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, the Ford Sierra Cosworth. The Meco XR four ti. Yeah, that was the eighties, the late eighties.

That wasn’t it. Okay.

Chris Bright: That was a cool car though. That’s another

Crew Chief Eric: underappreciated car. Very underappreciated. Extremely.

Chris Bright: That’s my nineties list,

Crew Chief Eric: so I have one for the nineties that I think gets forgotten. Because it was eclipsed very quickly. And I recently got to ride in one for an extended period of time.

[01:37:00] And it reinvigorated the passion for one of these. And it’s the first gen two and a half liter Boxster.

Mark Shank: Oh yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Makes 200 horse weighs 2, 700 pounds. It’s everything you need out of a two seat roadster convertible and they’re cheap. They’re very, very cheap.

Rob Parr: Good one. You have to bring it the first gen ZR1 Corvette right now.

Good bargain, right? Are

Mark Shank: they still cheap? They were relatively cheap for a long time.

Rob Parr: Yeah, they’re still cheap. You know why they’re overlooked because people look at the C fives and sixes, but you know, it’s a collectible item. And it was very expensive back in 1990 to buy a ZR1, it was double the price of a regular Corvette.

375 horsepower had a turnkey. So your kid couldn’t get more power of like 200 normally. And then it goes with the 375 or 405, depending on the year.

Don Weberg: Remember when that, when that car hit the 405, that was the moment when Corvette absolutely went fender to fender with Testarossa and Countach and the, and the 930 Turbo.

They were [01:38:00] fender to fender with our cars all the way. And yet they were so much cheaper. I heard a good one, uh, back in the day, I’m going to go buy myself a Walmart Ferrari. You know, and they were referencing a Corvette, you know, you can’t go wrong with one of those cars. You really can’t. The only caution I’ve got with the ZR1 from that era is don’t break that engine because there are no parts anymore.

Those engines are, you know, unobtainium.

Mark Shank: Yeah, you do run into this situation very often where, you know, the aspirational, less expensive platform, and I’m not going to say American or whatever. This is a true cross country where they go up against the end of the older platforms. And they kicked their butts.

It’s kind of really a shame in the zero one. You just, the internal politics around GM kind of killing that car, totally badass and underappreciated.

Don Weberg: Great one, you know, kind of building on that way off base here. I’m going to say this and you guys are either going to wonder what it is, or you’re going to say, you’ve got to be kidding me.

Especially Mark over there with his anti front wheel drive thing. But [01:39:00] the Dodge Daytona IROC RT of 1992, that was a bear of a car. And it was a little 2. 2 liter or cylinder with a, with a turbo and an intercooler. The damn thing put out 222 horsepower and Mark, forgive me that front wheel drive because of it, good God almighty.

You, you could scare the bejesus out of Trans Ams, Corvettes, Mustangs all day long. And especially in the curves, when that front wheel drive is just pulling you through, they were brilliant cars, they were very few of them produced. And yet again, there are none out there. And a lot of guys don’t even know what they are.

And if you go back to the 80s, just like you’re saying, Mark, build on that platform. I mean, it was just a K car with a turbocharger body.

Crew Chief Eric: That charger you mentioned earlier, the GLH charger, it’s basically a derivative of that,

Don Weberg: right? It is the father of the Daytona. They shared the showroom for one year. I think then no more charger with Daytona city.

Crew Chief Eric: So another one that was on my list coming from the VAG [01:40:00] world yet again, nowadays, you’re starting to see the resurgence of. First gen quattros and second gen quattro coupes. And a lot of people second gen quattro coupes are like, what is that? And you can go look them up 1990, 91, they brought 1, 500 of them.

Some say 1, 600 to the United States. We had three of them. So I can account for those. We still have one. They’re kind of the epitome of the nineties, right? A big old, just blob of metal on wheels, you know, like any. Ford tourists or contour, you know, all that same shape, the 90s, everything was a marshmallow, right?

The bubble design cars, right? Cab forward, all that kind of stuff. And the reason I bring up the Intrepid is the first car with cab forward. Granted, the Chrysler Intrepid is not going to be a collector vehicle. It’s not going to make this list. I just said it for fun. Now going back to Audi, the car you should buy is not a second gen quattro coupe.

You’ll be disappointed with the whopping 175 horsepower that that 20 valve five cylinder puts out. Save your pennies. You only need about a hundred more and go buy yourself a 1994 [01:41:00] Audi 90 quattro CS. There’s a 2. 8 liter V6. It’s a more modern suspension. They came automatic and manual. It’s a better gearbox.

A lot of other stuff that was just improved upon the same platform. Those chassis are great. Adding the V six and putting the wishbone suspension, all the other stuff that you take and put on a second gen Quattro is all there for you. And it’s not that much more expensive. And the best part is it’s a sedan, right?

You’re not dealing with trying to get into the back and the vault doors, like a Chevy Beretta. It’s That, you know, the second gen coupes had all that kind of stuff. So that would be my recommendation for a saloon car from that era.

Mark Shank: That’s interesting. You know, the Audi guy recommending you go from the classic inline five to the V6.

Crew Chief Eric: Heck yeah. The other reason is. the four valve heads on there from the later six is you can do a lot of stuff with the six cylinder. There was an all aluminum three liter that you could drop in there. There’s a lot of things you could do more [01:42:00] modern fuel injection in 1994 versus 1990 right in the beginning they had Motronic and then the later stuff came out.

So it’s just a better car waiting four years later for something way more modern. Now, if you really want to go extreme, the cabriolet is what I would get if I was cruising around. Same body style, all the stuff I just talked about. Only difference is they came in automatic only, but that’s really easy to swap out.

Rob Parr: Let me throw one else out at you guys. The Taurus SHO Yamaha engine. He’s shaking his head.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. They were cool. Yeah, definitely. It was affordable. It was the poor man’s Audi 5, 000. I mean, right. You know,

Don Weberg: It really was, you know, the SHL again, Yamaha power, 220 horsepower out of the box, five speed manual is it went into the nineties, you have the same package, but the availability of an automatic and a sharper body.

Uh, no, the SHL was a fantastic car and building on that and going into the Mopar camp again, you had [01:43:00] the Dodge spirit RT, which was basically let’s take that Daytona is 2. 2 turbo and put it into a sedan body. And again, nobody knew. Nobody had any idea what this car was. It was a killer car. It really was.

Now going back to Japan, if I could kind of compliment you guys, Mitsubishi had the, um, Galant, but it was a VR4 package. So you had the three liter V6 with the twin turbo, with the intercooler, with the five speed manual transmission. I mean, for the most part, it was a fairly conservative looking car. I think the SHO and the Spirit looked a lot more aggressive than the VR4 Mitsubishi sedan.

Crew Chief Eric: The Spirit was the one that was also offered as the Shadow and the Duster and like a million other names, right?

Don Weberg: It was the Plymouth Shadow and it was the Dodge Spirit. The Duster was a sub package. To the Plymouth Shadow.

Crew Chief Eric: So you would recommend that over the Neon? Not that I’m saying the Neon is suddenly becoming a collector car, because it’s not, but I’m just [01:44:00] asking.

Chris’s face is amazing.

Don Weberg: I would. I think he opened

Crew Chief Eric: some Gorgonzola over there.

Don Weberg: I think the Neon is a little car, but when you’re just talking, you know, sheer drivability, sheer torque. The neon cannot touch the spirit RT. There’s just no way it’s just not going to do it. And it sure as hell not going to touch the VR for another reason.

I like that spirit. It’s a 2. 2 liter four cylinder with a turbo and an intercooler. The other cars are V sixes. The Mitsubishi is the bully of the group. That thing’s got a V six with two turbos and an intercooler. The SHL is a three liter V six. That’s really, really well tuned up. Those two are bullies compared to that Dodge.

That Dodge is a little four cylinder, but it. Kicks butt.

Crew Chief Eric: So I’ll see your spirit and I will raise you. And I think it was 1992 ish when they went out in 93, the last year of the first gen minivan came as an RT with [01:45:00] color match bumpers and all this stuff. Mm-Hmm. . Those are cool. And I think that’s a collector car if you’re into vans and station wagons.

Rob Parr: But I wanna throw a, a wrench in here. ’cause we did bring up minivans. Got to bring up the SVT lightning truck. It’s a very sought after truck now. Very collectible. The very

Crew Chief Eric: first one. Yeah, you’re right. You’re right. I like those a lot too. They’re, they’re a lot of fun.

Rob Parr: I know a guy tunes them and lowers them and those things are incredible.

Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s a great car that had the Windsor in it. If I remember correctly or the Cleveland, one of those two motors, right? It’s, it’s nothing fancy and base trim, but when they lightening it up, it was a hell of an engine.

Don Weberg: They are. And if you want to go that route, here I go with my Oldsmobile again, the Oldsmobile silhouette, which was a dust buster looking van.

I mean, they weren’t performance oriented at all, but if you want to talk about cool minivans, now, I don’t know if we’re going to go recommend to some guy, Hey, for your first collector car, you should go get a minivan.

Chris Bright: I think you guys have been smoking a little too much. So let’s get back on track that we’re starting to talk about [01:46:00] minivans.

Don Weberg: I think we’ve just lost. Chris, I can pretty well assure you that Mark is writing all this down and he’s going to bomb us very soon here. No, it’s Brad. We haven’t

Crew Chief Eric: heard from Brad for like 90 minutes. I

Don Weberg: know Brad has just been sitting over there. I’m like, what does he do, you know?

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, no, thank you, Alex. I’m okay.

Uh, the nine 28 was definitely one, although I’m a nine, six, eight guy, like Mark, the nine, six, eight, just a phenomenal car ever since we started auto crossing together 20 years ago, I was drooling over the couple of the nine, six, eights that were there. So that car for me, but the nine 20 is a good distance second for that.

I’m disappointed that nobody said anything. Truck wise, other than the SVT lightning, when we were talking about the sixties, I was thinking like suburbans and stuff like that, but that’s just because I’m a bigger guy and I like bigger vehicles than late nineties BMW seven series. Those are beautiful.

Like the

Crew Chief Eric: transporter. Yeah, those are really

Crew Chief Brad: 7 40. [01:47:00] Yeah, that’s the 7 40 aisles and the, you can get a 7 40 I sport. I looked for one for a long time and they just was very hard to find. So that’s why I bought the S8 when I did, but yeah, those cars are phenomenal as well.

Don Weberg: Okay, but look guys, I really, I hate to cut in again.

I know I’m like the Jay Leno here, but I, I kind of got to get going. I want to throw out a few that I, I wrote down here for 90s cars that I think are Worth looking into laugh at me. Don’t laugh at me. Whatever. I’ll start with the Honda Del Sol, which is basically a nine 14 or an X one nine or a Viper, if you look at it, it kind of looks like a baby Viper, the Lexus SC 300 or SC 400 coupe, the other one, which is kind of a weird one.

You might actually have to look it up very early, the infinity and the 30 coupe or convertible. Then there, here I go with the old mobiles. Again, the old mobile Calais quad four.

Crew Chief Eric: I wanna see your facial reaction. I want your opinion on this, Don, 2002 to 2004 Thunderbird.

Don Weberg: Oh, yeah, [01:48:00] yeah, yeah. They’re a great car.

I mean, if you just want to cruise and, and chill. Correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t think those have the supercharger option at that point, did they? No,

Crew Chief Eric: four point, they were

Don Weberg: just the 4.6 and then the uh, the three point, it’s so Lincoln

Crew Chief Eric: Mark X, it’s a Jag X type or whatever underneath. So yeah, those could be collector cards.

They’re really cheap. And they’re very retro and they’re in that at the end of the retro period, really. So I think those are something people could look out for.

Don Weberg: And actually that specific generation, which was the last of the classic bird, if you will, before the retro bird came out. If you look at the interior of those, they had a stunning interior.

They really had a very, very nice interior. And again, you can get the Mercury brother, which had a kind of a blunted rear roof, uh, different, different style altogether. But, you know, building on that car, it shared the chassis with the Lincoln Mark 8 and the Mark 8 was a beast of a car, very technologically advanced.

It had the 4. 6 liter, but you had 32 valves, four overhead cams. [01:49:00] Essentially it was a ZR1. It had the same formulas as the ZR1. Slippery, slippery body. One of those was recorded at, it was either El Mirage or the Salt Flats, I can’t remember which, but one of those, very modified, went over 200 miles an hour.

It was still just running. When I say modified, it wasn’t the engine. It was the body and the interior and lowering it so it’s even slipperier through the wind. But it went, it went something like 207 miles per hour with a factory engine. Yeah, building on your Thunderbird idea, you know, take it a step further.

And if you want to talk sedan again, here I go with the Lincolns, the Continental of that same basic era also used engine, 32 valve, four overhead cams, but it was a front wheel drive. I’m sorry, Mark, but it was a front wheel drive platform, but it was a sedan. Very luxurious, very nice car, but next he’ll try to sell

Crew Chief Eric: us on something with a North star in it, like the XLR, but I’m going to leave that.

I got

Don Weberg: you. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I liked the North star, [01:50:00] but you know, what’s funny about the North star, it is a good engine. If you repair everything, Cadillac did. If you go through and fix everything Cadillac did, you’re going to be fine. But if you really want a solid Cadillac engine, look at the 4. 9 liter.

Anything with that 4. 9 liter is going to, going to get you around.

Mark Shank: The nineties go without talking about the Mitsubishi Eclipse.

Chris Bright: Yeah, that’s a great one.

Mark Shank: I mean, it’s such an iconic. I agree. It’s such an iconic nineties car. If only because of the fast and the furious, which,

Crew Chief Eric: but isn’t it already a collector car though?

It’s not,

Mark Shank: no, no. Look at printer trailer. They haven’t sold one in five years. I’m not kidding. Type Mitsubishi Eclipse in there and an actual second gen Eclipse. And they haven’t sold one since like 2019 or something. And you can’t find them. I have looked, there’s two on eBay motors right now. And that’s about it.

Crew Chief Eric: I like where you’re going, but I would say the collector card for me would be anything with an eagle badge on it from that time [01:51:00] period. Not the Mitsubishi. It’s the same car. You’re

Chris Bright: just being difficult. You’re just being difficult. I’ve got like a cult classic that I have a super soft spot in my heart from the 90s, which is the Saab 900S Turbo.

Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s the, that’s kind of the end of the line, right?

Chris Bright: Yeah, it’s like a, it’s that last of the wedgie boxy. Yeah, ULAR sob and then the

Crew Chief Eric: nine, the 9,000 came out, which was unlike anything else they had at that time.

Chris Bright: Yeah, the The 900 Turbo, it’s not gonna win any beat anybody off the line, but it’s just funky and weird.

It’s a sob. I mean,

Crew Chief Eric: what do you expect?

Chris Bright: Yeah. And we forget about sobs ’cause they’re gone now.

Crew Chief Brad: Right. Anytime I saw one of those cars, I thought it was just a weird looking 9 11.

Chris Bright: I

Crew Chief Brad: can say that. That’s very true. Because of how the windshield. You’re a weird

Chris Bright: looking 9 11.

Crew Chief Brad: I would be a very weird looking 9 11 if I was a 9 11.

Crew Chief Eric: So I don’t think we can go too much further into the 2000s. Like you guys said at the [01:52:00] beginning, 2002 is really the cutoff, right? The last 20 years. We still have yet to determine what’s going to be considered a classic, but I’ll pose this. Unless it’s

Mark Shank: the Porsche, everything they made is a classic just buy them all.

Yeah. So

Crew Chief Eric: I’ll leave this as kind of the last lightning round question. As we look at the last 20 years, is there something right now that stands out that you guys are going? I think that’s going to be a classic.

Chris Bright: Tons of like high end cars that you could pick off. I find that less interesting because they’re designed to be instant classics or whatever, like there’s this whole marketing thing.

I don’t know the one that I would pick out. And I already alluded to it because I think it’s an important car. And I think it’s a cool car is the Tesla roadster electric sports car, kind of groundbreaking first of the Tesla lineage, which. I think we can all predict is going to be a huge thing. So it’s going to be like the little kernel of car that kind of like started the whole EV car revolution.

And [01:53:00] you know, that’s a controversial thing for all of us old timers. But when you look at a car, that’s going to be looked back upon is important and pretty rare. Already it’s that

Mark Shank: I totally agree. I mean, I don’t like the car, but I totally agree in the sense that, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s certainly was the beginning of an era in, in that way.

It’s going to be a seminal car for the, you know, the next generation of technology and a hundred percent be collectible is basically a paperweight. As it sits today, but, uh, you know, I mean, given the cost of the batteries and, and the unavailability of software updates and all the other things, like I’m confident that there will be an open source community that eventually is able to get that thing running.

And you’ll be able to buy some aftermarket batteries and be able to make a modern vehicle out of it. I think we fall into this trap very often. You said earlier in the class, there’s so many auto manufacturers today are kind of playing on the trope of the, you know, this is the last hurrah [01:54:00] of the ice platform and whether it’s Shelby Cobras or, or whatever, you know, The thing is, is like, who knows when that last hurrah really will be right?

Like there was, there will absolutely be a market for 5, 000 or 10, 000 cars for 150 grand that make a bunch of horsepower and runoff internal combustion engines. They’re going to be making those through 2035 or 2040 or what? Like it’s not now it’s really not as much as anybody says now for your mainstream cars, certainly, but your Shelby GT 500 is not the last one of those cars.

It just isn’t. You know, people tend to fall into those traps or they fall into the manual transmission trap on Porsche or whatever it’s like, Oh my God, they put a manual in it. I’m one of those people, I own one, but I like it. That’s, that’s why, that’s why I have it. That’s what I wanted. The values and the things that had happened to them as a result.

You know, it’s easy to point out like a Viper [01:55:00] ACR or something, but the values of those have already gone through the roof. They couldn’t move them off the damn lot for 145 grand. When they were making them now they’re 300, 000 if I had to pick a classic car that wasn’t like an obvious bid at a classic, maybe it’s a little basic, but I go back to like a C7 ZR1 or Z06.

You know, it was the last front engine Corvette. It was last year, it was the last of a, of a generation and they had a hard time moving those. They were selling, especially the zero sixes with like huge discounts to get those things off the lots just to move them and you know, the market had kind of fallen out from them.

And I think that’s generally kind of indicative of a classic car. This is the best version of this platform, but it’s when the platform is a little too long in the tooth for the contemporary market. But the classic car buyer doesn’t care 20 years from now. They don’t care 20 years from now that that car was [01:56:00] three or four years too late for the market.

That’s the best version of that platform. That’s the best version of that car. And I think, you know, that’s, that’s a future classic.

Crew Chief Eric: So I think you guys And the audience included has probably already guessed what my vote will be in this category. And this car has yet to be sold on the dealership lots.

And that’s the new Z400. I mean, if you think about it, it checks all the boxes. If we talk about the end of the ice era and all this kind of thing, a two door sports car. Proper sports coupe with a manual transmission, making decent horsepower, all that kind of stuff. I think that’s going to be the car you buy today and in 20 years is worth a mint because it really is the end of the line in a lot of ways when you look at all those boxes.

But you know, Brad’s been stewing on all this stuff throughout this episode. So after taking all this in, what do you think, Brad, what would you buy?

Crew Chief Brad: 2016 Dodge

Crew Chief Eric: Dart. HHR, BT Cruiser, all those.

Crew Chief Brad: You can get a brand new 2016 Dodge Dart on [01:57:00] dealer lots right now. People do it every day. At least one a month. Um, no, I, I’m going to say the F Type Jag.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that’s a good choice too. But

Crew Chief Brad: I’m not going to say like the SVR or the big V8 one. I’m going to say the only one you can get with a manual, there’s like the standard V6 because they just didn’t make very many of them. I like the supercharged six as well. If I was talking about a car nowadays. That’s not a Dodge chart.

Don Weberg: If I can fire a shot too, and I think this is hugely important. The thing I tell everybody who asked me anything about this, it’s just buy what you like, because then even if you’re stuck with a total dud in terms of value, at least you like your car. You know, and you can have fun with it still, you might not be having some sort of Porsche, but you’ve got something that you enjoy.

You know, there’s a kid back in California, a real nice kid. He bought himself a, uh, Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible, real nice car, five speed car, real, real nice car. He was just having a [01:58:00] ball with that thing. But behind his back, I hate to say it, but people were kind of making fun of him. And I said, why are you making fun of him?

You know, and they all have these goofy, all is a mass produced Mitsubishi, who cares? I said, yes. You ever heard of the 3000 GT VR4? Have you ever heard of the stealth? Those are the big brothers of the Eclipse. And guess what? People are starting to clamor for those cars. I guarantee that Eclipse is going to be exactly the same way.

Sorry to all of you out there who are kids. I know I’m the old fart of the group here, but he’s a kid who’s really getting into it, and the Mitsubishi is his gateway car, so to say. He’s really enjoying the Mitsubishi. I’m hoping that later on he’ll get into other cars. He seems to have a thing for the Japanese, but the bottom line, even if he can’t sell that car for more than a dollar down the line, you know what?

He had a ball. He had fun. Who cares? Let it go.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think that goes back to a very important point that you talked about on your episode, Don, which is not dissuading people from the cars that they like, right? If they’re attracted to it, even if it’s not the [01:59:00] most popular thing or not the smartest investment, foster that enthusiasm, get people interested in the automotive world.

So like all good, what should I buy episodes? We never really come to a conclusion, but we give you plenty of food for thought. So hopefully if you’re listening to this, you had a good time. We sure did. And maybe we gave you some things to think about that you weren’t considering before. So to learn more about each of our guests, you can revisit their episodes on break fix or continue this conversation over at garage riot.

com, the social media platform for vehicle enthusiasts.

Crew Chief Brad: And

Crew Chief Eric: bring your garage

Crew Chief Brad: or collection to the next level. Don over at garage style magazine. com. Get all the latest information on events, clubs, forums, and recommended vendors over with Rob at collector car guide. net. And if you want to clear out your garage shop or shed, list your parts today with Chris over at www.

collectorcarguide. net.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, gentlemen, I can’t thank you enough for coming back [02:00:00] on break fix and putting up with the shenanigans that is what should I buy? We look forward to seeing you all again soon on another episode.

Crew Chief Brad: We can’t agree on what cars you should buy, but I think we can all agree on what car you should not buy.

You know what car didn’t

Crew Chief Eric: make this list?

Crew Chief Brad: The Pontiac Aztec.

Crew Chief Eric: A hundred percent.

Chris Bright: I’m going to get one just to be cool.

Mark Shank: Yeah, it’s going to be a collector breaking the ad. I think change the profile of that car. Not enough.

Don Weberg: It was great talking to all of you. Great to meet you. And, uh, I’ll look forward to our next conversation.

Mark Shank: Good to see you, Don. Good to meet you.

Chris Bright: I’m sure. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Thanks for hanging out. It was, uh, it was a real blast. Signing off. Later.

Crew Chief Eric: Thanks guys. No worries. Thanks. Bye.

Crew Chief Brad: 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 at GrandTouringMotorsports. [02:01:00] Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, be You can call or text us at 202 630 1770 or send us an email gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

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

For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig newtons, gummy bears, and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com. patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports and remember without fans, [02:02:00] supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Bonus Content

There's more to this story!

Be sure to check out the behind the scenes for this episode, filled with extras, bloopers, and other great moments not found in the final version. Become a Break/Fix VIP today by joining our Patreon.

All of our BEHIND THE SCENES (BTS) Break/Fix episodes are raw and unedited, and expressly shared with the permission and consent of our guests.

To learn more about each of our guests, you can revisit their episodes on Break/Fix, or continue the conversation over on our Discord.

Learn More

What else should you buy? Check out other What Should I Buy? Podcast episodes for more car buying “advice” 😉 And remember: the debate never ends – it just shifts gears.

  • Model A Ford
  • Chris Bright's Alfa Romeo Guilia Super
    Chris' Alfa Romeo Giulia Super
  • Austin Healey 3000
  • Abarth Record Monza
  • Triumph TR4
  • Fiat 850
  • "Squarebird" Ford Thunderbird 1958-1960
  • 1965 Buick Skylark Convertible
  • Pontiac T37
  • Ford Gran Tourino Sport
  • 1973 MG B
  • Early Porsche 928
  • Porsche 912 (The 4 cylinder 911!)
  • The Ferrari 208 turbo... you know what a 308 looks like, right?
  • BMW E9
  • Lancia Fulvia
  • Audi 100 Coupe
  • The Chrysler Cordoba w/ Ricardo Montalban + Corinthian Leather
  • The Stutz Bearcat
  • The "C3" Corvette
  • Alfa Romeo Milano / 75
  • Ferrari 456 GT
  • 2002-2005 Ford "New" Thunderbird
  • Buick Regal Turbo
  • Buick LeSabre T-Type
  • Gen-1 Mazda RX-7
  • Lancia Beta Montecarlo
  • Fiat 131
  • Acura/Honda NSX
  • C4 Corvette
  • Opel Manta
  • Ford Capri
  • VW "MK2" GTI
  • Isuzu Impulse
  • Dodge Omni Shelby GLHS
  • 1986 VW Quantum Syncro Wagon
  • Lincoln MK VII
  • Pontiac Fiero
  • Buick Reatta
  • 1991 Nissan Maxima
  • Toyota Starlett
  • Toyota Corolla FX-16
  • 1985 Honda CR-X
  • VW Corrado
  • Pontiac Grand Prix "McLaren ASC"
  • 1990 Lotus Elan

Advice for the Aspiring Collector

  • Buy What You Love: Don’t chase trends — chase joy. Whether it’s a Falcon or a Fiat 850, if it makes you smile, it’s worth it.
  • Think About Parts: Mass-produced cars are easier to maintain. Rare doesn’t always mean better.
  • Learn the History: Every car has a story. The more you know, the more fun you’ll have.
  • Join the Culture: From VW Beetle fans to Alfa nerds, collector car communities are welcoming and passionate.

Whether you’re drawn to pre-war elegance, post-war charm, muscle car bravado, or modern oddities, there’s a collector car out there for you. The key is to find something that speaks to your soul – and maybe makes your friends raise an eyebrow.

So, what should you buy? That’s up to you. But thanks to our panel, you’ve got a roadmap – and a few detours – to get started… Don’t agree, let’s agree to disagree? Come share your opinions and continue the conversation on the Break/Fix Discord!


Thanks to our panel of Petrol-heads!

Guest Co-Host: Don Weberg

In case you missed it... be sure to check out the Break/Fix episode with our co-host.
Listen on Apple
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Bring your garage or collection to the next level with Don over at garagestylemagazine.com

Guest Co-Host: Rob Parr

In case you missed it... be sure to check out the Break/Fix episode with our co-host.
Listen on Apple
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Get all the latest information on events, clubs, forums and recommended vendors over with Rob at collectorcarguide.net

Guest Co-Host: Chris Bright

In case you missed it... be sure to check out the Break/Fix episode with our co-host.
Listen on Apple
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And if you want to clear out your garage, shop or shed… list your parts today with Chris over at www.collectorpartexchange.com

Guest Co-Host: Mark Shank

In case you missed it... be sure to check out the Break/Fix episode with our co-host.
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This content has been brought to you in-part by support through...

The Mental Road to Victory: Dr. Jacques Dallaire on Performance, Focus, and the Psychology of Racing

In motorsports, the green flag doesn’t just drop on the track – it drops in your mind. You can be in the zone during practice, but when race day arrives, everything unravels. Why? According to Dr. Jacques Dallaire, founder of Performance Prime and a pioneer in performance physiology, it’s not just about skill – it’s about mindset.

Recorded live with SRO Motorsports at VIR, this episode of Break/Fix dives deep into the mental side of racing, revealing how champions think, how they train their focus, and how they avoid the trap of self-sabotage.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Listen on Apple
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Dr. Dallaire’s central framework is deceptively simple: your performance (A) multiplied by uncontrollable factors (B) equals your results. You can bring your A-game – skill, preparation, effort – but if you fixate on outcomes, you’re already off track. The B-factors (weather, competitors, mechanical issues) are out of your hands. The key? Focus on what you can control. “It is impossible for me to do better than that best I can do. If I bring the best I’ve got, it will generate the best result possible on that day.”

Spotlight

Synopsis

Dr. Jacques Dallaire, a performance physiologist, discusses the psychological aspects of high-performance in motorsports and other fields. He explains his performance equation (A x B = Results), where A represents personal performance and B represents uncontrollable factors. Dallaire outlines seven ‘rules of the mental road,’ emphasizing the importance of controlling one’s thoughts, focus, and perspective. He argues that mental self-sabotage often stems from worrying about results rather than focusing on the present task. The doctor advocates for severing the connection between confidence and results, instead linking confidence to one’s commitment to face challenges. Dallaire stresses the significance of controlling one’s focus of attention as the key to peak performance, applicable not just in motorsports but in all aspects of life.

  • Tell us about your Motorsports background and how you go into this field of sports medicine. 
  • So what is Mental Sabotage? – where does this stem from, why do people do it to themselves?
    • How do you reduce your insecurities / anxieties in the race environment, and does this carry over to your life in general?
    • How do you control your focus more effectively, in the race car and beyond?
  • Much of what we’re going to talk about next is based on your Performance Equation – and how do you apply / use it?
  • STRESS AND FATIGUE – how does it play in?
  • So – let’s talk about some recommendations for getting out of your own head… You have this framework called “the Rules of the Mental Road”, there are 7 of them – let’s explore those

Transcript

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: No one ever goes into any motorsports event and says today, I want to come in last the essence of competition is that we’re all fighting to be the best. Training, conditioning, practice, and even superstition all seem to go out the window when the green flag drops.

Have you ever wondered why you can be in the zone and perform at your best on a practice day, but during the race, nothing ever seems to come together? Maybe it was bad luck, or maybe You mentally sabotage

Crew Chief Brad: yourself with us to discuss why people psych themselves [00:01:00] out and how to prevent it from happening is Dr.

Jacques Dallaire, PhD founder and president of performance prime, where he spends his time working with race teams of all disciplines to develop the mindset of champions.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, Brad. And let’s rejoin the action as we recorded live with SRO Motorsports at VIR. Welcome to break fix. Dr. Diller. How are you?

Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate the invitation. So before we jump into what your area of expertise is in the world of mental therapy, let’s talk about your motor sports background and how you got into this field of sports medicine.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Okay, well, I think it’s probably useful to clarify, first of all, I’m not a psychologist, nor am I a psychiatrist.

My background is performance physiology. But I’ve been dealing with the mental skills side of the high performance world for just over 50 years. In addition to the mental skills side, the physical preparation side is something that academically I’ve spent a lot of time studying as well. I got involved with motorsports.

[00:02:00] of mine for a course I was teaching at McGill University back in the early 80s. The course was called Scientific Principles of Training and Conditioning. This gentleman raced karts and he was a real motorsports fan, as well as a competitor at the karting level. And he chose to apply a Project that I had given the students within the class, he had chose to apply that to the sport of motor racing.

And that actually started off my involvement in racing. That year, I found myself at the Formula One Grand Prix with heart rate monitors, measuring the heart rate response of Formula One drivers during practice and qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix. So that was a start.

Crew Chief Brad: What is mental sabotage?

Where does this stem from? Why do people do it to themselves? How do you reduce your insecurities and anxieties in the race environment? And does this carry over to your life in general?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Wow, that’s an interesting series of questions because we could probably spend [00:03:00] 25 to 40 hours talking about those things.

Where does self sabotage comes from? Unfortunately, society today sets us up for self sabotage. Because results are so important, we are constantly reminded and encouraged to worry about results. And because everybody so desperately wants to be successful, they actually do worry about results. And that is fundamentally the cause of their self sabotage.

If you’re focused on how you’re doing, you can’t be fully focused on what you’re doing at the same moment in time.

Crew Chief Eric: How do you control your focus more effectively? In the race car and beyond.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: It’s a skill. Think of a flashlight and a beam of light. Consider that beam of light, your beam of concentration.

You get to aim it where you want. You can shine it on one wall, or you can turn around and shine it on an opposite wall. You can take that flashlight, spin the head, and make it more like a floodlight, and broaden its [00:04:00] capture. Or you can narrow it like a spotlight, and narrow what it focuses on. So if you think about the skill set of concentration, it’s managing and controlling.

The beam of concentration and where we apply it.

Crew Chief Eric: So on the racetrack, there’s a lot of things going on at the same time. So how does any one person pick the one thing they should be focusing on? How they broaden that floodlight or that spotlight?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Depends the situation they’re in. If you’re on a straightaway and there’s a gap between you and the guy in front of you and the guy behind you, you can afford to allow your shift in focus to occur internally.

To think about strategy, to think about a problem you’re having, how you might solve it. If you’re dicing with someone in a corner, you don’t want to be inside your own head because you want to be paying attention to what’s happening around you. Because if you’re inside your own head, When you’re in that corner, you’re not paying attention to the exact spot you’re on on the track, where the other [00:05:00] competitors are, and so on.

So it’s a constant adjustment, a focus of attention, based on the demands of the situation in that moment. Think about it. If you’re thinking about a corner you just messed up, as you drive into the next corner, what is more likely to occur? You’re gonna mess that one up too, right? Why? Because your performance is defined by what you do in this corner right here and right now, but your mind is preoccupied by what you did in the last corner or what you might do four corners from here.

Either of those thought processes are counterproductive because rule number two of the mental road says the conscious mind can only actively process one thought at a time. And if you’re focused four corners away or two laps from now, what are you not focused on in the same moment? What you’re doing right here and right now.

And that’s when people get into trouble. They make mistakes.

Crew Chief Eric: We’ll talk more about the rules of the mental road as we move on here in the conversation, but you brought something to light that [00:06:00] I think was summarized very well by Enzo Ferrari. He says what’s behind you doesn’t matter. We talk about that a lot in high performance driver’s education as coaches, where if we focus too much on what happened in, you know, two corners ago, our students are suffering from the learning that we’re trying to give them in the fact that we’re focusing on something that really isn’t important.

We need to catch that the next time around and keep them focused on driver’s line, what’s going on, being situationally aware, et cetera, et cetera.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: So I would have said it a little differently myself

Crew Chief Eric: than Enzo.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Yeah, honestly, I would have, I would have said it this way. We can learn from what happened before, so it does matter, but I shouldn’t focus on that.

What I should focus on is what’s happening right now.

Crew Chief Eric: So living in the now, per se. Yeah,

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: because there is value to what happened if I use it as a learning opportunity. When you say it doesn’t matter, I know what he meant. He meant it doesn’t matter right now, but it actually does matter.

Crew Chief Eric: Much of what we’re going to talk about in this session revolves around this principle of a performance [00:07:00] equation.

A lot of us are scratching our head going, math? Really? How does this all play in? So how do you apply it? How do you use it? Let’s expand upon this. Can you explain to us what the performance equation is? It’s a

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: simplistic, but I believe profoundly true, way of explaining where results come from. I’ve been doing this for more than 50 years and I’ve never had, as you said in your introduction, I’ve never had someone visit with me and say, I want to be a loser.

I’d like to fail. I’m really hoping to come in last this weekend. Can you show me how to suck at this thing I’m about to do? Because I’d really like to suck at it. No one’s ever said that. And that’s because everybody wants to be successful, because success is a heck of a lot better than failure. For lots of reasons, right?

So the really important question is not, does everybody share the same goal? Because I am certain, I’m at VAR as you guys are this weekend, I’m certain that every single competitor, not just the drivers, but crew members, team bosses, sanctioning body people, everybody hopes for [00:08:00] success this weekend. That’s the goal.

It’s not a single person who wants to lose. More important question is how do you make results be as good as they can possibly be? And that’s where the performance equation comes in. Something I created about 35 years ago as a way of explaining how results are generated. And there are two components.

The equation reads as such. A times B equals results. This has been true since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. And it will be true for the next 300 years or at least as long as we’re on this rock. So what does it mean? The A in the equation represents my performance. What I bring to the party in the moment when my performance is required.

In the race car, in a negotiation, in a presentation, on date night, doing brain surgery, singing a musical piece on the stage at Carnegie Hall, whatever it happens to be. In that moment, the knowledge, skill, experience that I bring. It’s part of that A game. It’s not good enough just to [00:09:00] have it, I also have to bring it.

Which means I have to put in the effort and make the commitment to bring my A game. Because I could be knowledgeable, skillful, and experienced, but be lazy. Or sleep deprived, or dehydrated, or haven’t been eating well, or sleeping well. All of those things contribute to minimize the quality of the A I bring to that moment.

So, our A game is the best version of us. Influenced by things that may reduce that to some degree. So the question is this, if a driver on this paddock brings their honest to God, a game to the party this weekend, and let’s sweeten the pot, every member of their team in their respective job brings their a game to the party as well, are they guaranteed to get the result they want?

Brad, what do you think? I’m gonna say yes. No, of course not. Of course not. You know, some people say yes, absolutely. I said, so, you’re telling me that if I could guarantee [00:10:00] you that you’re gonna bring your A game, and every member of your team will bring their A game, you would bet your parents house that you’re gonna win this race.

And then they think about it, and they say,

Crew Chief Eric: Mmm. I only bet if I know I’m going to win.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Yeah. Right. If I know I’m going to win. As we know, there are other things. Because if that’s all it took, the equation would read A equals results, wouldn’t it? Right. And who in their right mind wouldn’t simply bring the best they’ve got, and they’d be guaranteed to win.

So there’s a second variable in the equation. And you’ll see where I’m going with this. The second variable are the B factors. By definition, all the things that I can’t control. Doesn’t mean they’re always B minus, and they work against me. Sometimes I am the windshield. Sometimes I’m the bug, though. It’s a B minus when it’s bad, but sometimes it’s a B plus.

Sometimes the B’s are very big, and they have a significant influence on the outcome. Sometimes they’re small. They happen, but I can drive around it. [00:11:00] Is it not true that in life in general, In everything, the results we accomplish are a product of what we bring to the moment of our performance, influenced by the things we cannot control.

I think that’s fundamentally true.

Crew Chief Eric: It is.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: It applies everywhere. So, where does the self sabotage comes in? When I ask people this question, why do you not always have the mindset that leads to those moments of personal virtuosity? Where you’re in your sweet spot, your groove and your zone. How do we explain why someone does so well on a practice day, chokes in the big moment of performance, only to come back and win practice again?

It’s not because we forget how to do on Sunday afternoon what we did so effectively on Thursday and Friday, and then miraculously remember again on Monday, or lose the ability on Sunday and then find it again on Monday. Something happens to corrupt our mindset that prevents us from bringing our skill set to bear in that moment of performance.[00:12:00]

So I ask the question, what is it that gets in the way and corrupts your mindset that prevents you from bringing that skill set that you obviously possess to bear when the chips are on the table and it’s go time? What do you think, Brad?

Crew Chief Brad: I think I need to know what this is. Well,

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: you tell me what you think it is.

I bet you do know. When you have struggled to put that moment of performance, virtuosity, that sometimes it can manifest, when it’s not there, what is it that gets in the way? Well, I mean, the obvious answer, I think, is myself. What exactly? That’s a pretty broad answer, myself.

Crew Chief Brad: I have a tendency to overthink things over and over and over and over.

And what does

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: that lead to?

Crew Chief Brad: Doubt, self doubt.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: I’ve asked that question. Of thousands of people around the globe, in many different professions, very successful people. 100 percent of the time, I get the same two answers. Doesn’t matter what culture, language, gender, job. Or how old they are. I get the same two answers.

90 percent of the [00:13:00] time, it is the same answer first. Guess what I hear? Fear. A failure. Self doubt. Lack of confidence. Worry over the consequences of failure. Worry about disappointing someone. Worrying about getting hurt. Worrying about crashing. In a nutshell, worrying about failing. And the reason it burns the hottest is because that is the one that creates the greatest amount of anxiety.

Think about it. We never have anxiety unless we are worried. Because when you’re not worried, you’re not anxious, are you? You create the anxiety in yourself through worry. And what is it that most people worry about? Failure.

Crew Chief Eric: So, you’d say it’s a little bit of a self fulfilling prophecy then?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Absolutely. One leads to the other.

It’s tied directly to how the unconscious mind takes its directives from our conscious thought. We don’t have time to get into all that relationship, but it’s all tied together. But [00:14:00] here’s the key. When you understand that your anxiety is a product of your thought process, and you realize that you have a hundred percent control over how you choose to think, then You can change your anxiety response.

By thinking differently.

Crew Chief Eric: So a couple things here to unpack to your point of earlier, stress and fatigue play a big part in our performance as well. And sometimes that will degrade our ability to perform at maximum. And I think we get inside our own heads in that respect to going, Oh man, I’m tired. I really don’t know if I can do this.

I’m not in the mood, you know, all that whole thing. But then there’s also the other side of this. When we bring it back to motor sports, I feel that for the guys that are at the upper echelon of racing, it’s really about risk mitigation. How far can they go before it’s too far? And then if they do scare themselves, again, that fear factor comes into play, then that’s when their performance starts to fall apart.

But until that point, it’s complete full send the whole way through until something bad [00:15:00] happens. And maybe they’re thinking, I’m just lucky nothing’s ever happened.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: I think there’s an interplay that exists between experience. And that comfort level that leads to confidence. The experienced driver is willing to go straighter and more quickly right to the edge of control.

Because he has more confidence in his ability to manage the car at the edge of control. The cushion is thinner. He gets there faster and it is closer to the edge. The novice or the person who doesn’t have quite as much experience takes a lot longer. More laps to get to that. And usually the cushion is fatter because he doesn’t have the confidence to trust that he can bring it back if it does go off the edge.

Because sometimes you can. Right?

Crew Chief Brad: But with that point, it makes me think that there’s a correlation between experience and confidence. There are other factors though. Oh,

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: for [00:16:00] sure. There is a relationship between confidence and experience. If you look at the research literature in the area of confidence, it tells us that there are two principal things that contribute to this question, this issue of confidence.

The first is preparation. The more well prepared I am, the more I’ve practiced, the more I’ve rehearsed, the more I have trained, the more confident I become. It is both a psychological and a neuropsychological influence. The psychological influence is I prove to myself repeatedly through practice that I actually can do this.

Because I’ve successfully done it in practice. The neuropsychological piece is, I groove the neural pathways, in particular when we’re talking about skill sets, where I improve the efficiency of that execution that simply reinforces that I’m getting better and better at doing this, and then it builds. So that’s the first piece, that’s that correlation between confidence [00:17:00] and experience or preparation.

And if you ask most people, When they start to lose confidence, here’s what they’ll tell you. When the results I’m getting, or I fear I might get, are not good, my confidence goes down. But when the results are good, or I believe they’re going to be good, my confidence tends to be high. Isn’t that

Crew Chief Eric: true?

Simply put, I view it as confidence being a lack of fear. Going back to that risk mitigation conversation. If again, you try something, you try something and nothing bad happens, you grow your confidence and I can continue to do those actions or those behaviors or whatever that thing is, whether it be sports or otherwise, I can keep getting away with it.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: As long as I believe the thing we’re doing is doable. Correct. As long as I believe it’s doable. The moment I believe it’s not doable. Confidence goes out the window.

Crew Chief Eric: Einstein said nothing’s impossible, just improbable, right?

Crew Chief Brad: There you go. There you go. To me, when you talk about the luck and, you know, [00:18:00] nothing bad has ever happened, a prime example of the opposite happening is Nicky Lauda.

I mean, he had all the confidence in the world, and then he had that terrible accident. He was in the car two weeks later. With his head wrapped up, uh, like a Yeah, I mean, any normal, sane person like us would just be like, Well, I’m never getting in the car again. But not a Superman like him. So what gave him that Superman ability?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Fear is an interesting one. Because it has to do with what I believe I am capable of, right? I may be able to do it. Actually, I may have the skill and the ability to do it, but if I don’t believe I can, I will have fear. If on the other hand, I can’t do it, but I believe I can do it. I won’t have any fear.

It’s misguided because I’m going to put it in the weeds, but it is a product. Like fear is a product of false expectations that appear so real. If you think of the acronym FEAR, F E [00:19:00] A R, false expectations appearing so real in the moment, and yet the reality of it is, how often do our fears actually materialize?

Not that often. And yet they limit us. Why?

Crew Chief Brad: Because we let them.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Because we think they might. And that undermines our confidence, and when our confidence is down, our willingness to go closer to the edge goes down. And that affects our performance.

Crew Chief Eric: So the question is, how do we fix that?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: I think the first thing that’s useful to consider is cutting the titanium cable that exists between confidence and results.

If the performance equation is true, the only thing in the A times B equals results equation I can actually control is A, what I do, what I bring to the party. I cannot control results because I can’t control the many things I can’t control, all the B factors in the equation. That’s fundamentally true in everything.

And yet, we [00:20:00] associate our confidence with outcome. We tend to have good confidence when results are good and bad confidence when they’re not. So it’s a fallacy if you think about it. If we’ve connected with that titanium cable, confidence and results, confidence will only be good when results are good, but it’ll be bad when results are not there.

Perhaps through no fault of our own, because of a B factor in the environment, and yet our confidence will not allow us to perform at the level that we’re capable of. We will sabotage ourselves. It really is that straightforward. So, what do you do with that connection? You sever that connection, and you re establish a new connection between confidence and the belief and commitment that I will lean into every challenge in front of me.

Win, lose or draw, can’t control that. But knowing that I will lean into every challenge and bring the best I’ve got. Confident that no matter how big the challenge is, I can do that. And you know what the great thing [00:21:00] is about that? It’s 100 percent in our control. So why worry if it’s 100 percent in our control?

All we have to do is work at executing that. Confidence stays high. You will be disappointed about lousy results on occasion, and that’s A OK. But those lousy results won’t gut your confidence, because confidence is not about something that you can’t control and that hasn’t happened yet, which is what results are.

Crew Chief Brad: So something tells me that the key to severing that connection lies in your rules of the mental road. It does. So let’s let’s explore those those seven rules. The

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: rules I created decades ago as a simple framework to help people to understand exactly what the thought process is that leads to mental self sabotage and also how they can avoid that trap.

Rule number one says, if you want to climb out of a hole, the first thing you have to do is recognize [00:22:00] that you’re digging. Stop digging. Then you can climb out of the hole because it’s impossible to be digging and climbing out of the hole at the same time. So what does that mean from a mental skills point of view?

What is mental digging? It’s the what if game. It’s the internal mind chatter. What if I’m not good enough? What if I can’t do this? What if I crash? What if I fail? What if I disappoint someone? All that internal dialogue That undermines our personal confidence and causes us to shift our focus to outcome and the fact that we’re worried about that outcome.

Rule number one simply says, if you want to climb out of the hole, you have to put the damn shovel down. Rule number two is a really important rule. The conscious mind can only actively process one thought at a time. I could prove it to you easily enough. You want me to prove it? Because we can do it right now.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, prove it.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Okay.

Crew Chief Brad: On Eric.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: What we’re going to do is, we’re, the three of [00:23:00] us, and the audience, we’re all going to do an exercise together. Here’s what we’re going to do. When I tell you to start, all of us together, out loud, we’re going to count backwards by threes. While you’re doing that, however, I’m going to ask you to solve a simple mathematical equation and give me the answer to as well.

Ready? Here we go. One hundred. Ninety seven. Ninety four. Ninety one. Keep going. Eighty eight. Eighty five. Two times three equals? That’s

Crew Chief Eric: correct.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: And now we’re at 82, and so on and so forth.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Yes. So let’s examine the cognitive processing that was going on in that little exercise. I don’t care if someone’s good with numbers or not.

If they’re good with numbers, they can do it on the fly. If they’re not, they have to picture in their mind’s eye a piece of paper, put a hundred down, Put a three under it, subtract it out. I don’t care what cognitive strategy they employed. Their mind is fully occupied by that task until I ask the question two times [00:24:00] three equals.

What happens to the first task? It stops. Listen carefully to the choice of my words. Your internal focus of attention shifts. You dip into auditory memory. And you ask yourself, what did he say? Oh, two times three. That’s six. Your internal focus of attention should have shifted back. You would have dipped into short term memory to remember where you were and you would have re engaged the task most people crash and burn on re entry.

Crew Chief Eric: The same concept as how a computer works by

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: interrupts. Absolutely. We are not multi core processors, and we are serial processors, not parallel processors, if you think of electronics, right? And the reason of the structure is what leads us to being unable to process one thought at a time. So here’s the significance of rule number two.

If I’m processing this, whatever this is, I can’t be processing [00:25:00] that at the same moment in time. If that is what I should be processing, because this is what’s relevant to my performance right in this moment, but I’m processing that other thing, what am I not doing? Paying full attention to what I’m doing in this moment.

very much. And that’s when people make mistakes. So when they say, you know what, so and so, Eric, he’s just not very focused. If Eric just focused more, he’d do better. They’re actually wrong because I guarantee you that little Eric is focused. The problem is he’s focused on the wrong thing. So when we say that person just isn’t focused, think about it.

Is that true? Is their mind completely blank or are they thinking about something? It just doesn’t happen to be the thing that matters in this moment. There’s part of the secret of this issue of concentration, isn’t it deploying it to what matters in the moment? It starts with recognizing when it’s incorrectly [00:26:00] deployed so we can redirect our flashlight to what matters

Crew Chief Eric: So in the context of motorsports and racing then What we’re doing is with practice and more practice and laps after lapped after lap is we’re building muscle memory to minimize the amount of Multiple things that we need to concentrate on, right?

Because, you know, coming out of the combination 14 through 17 on the backside of EIR through a roller coaster and hog pen, it’s very complicated. You can be very daring through there, but you can also do it almost innately. The car feels like it’s driving itself autopilot. Exactly. But you could be thinking on a million other things.

Who’s behind me? What’s happening? You know, should I make that pass? How close am I? The guy, do I need gas? These are again, what does that?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Right? Unconscious mind is where that happens, and the problem is we can’t control our unconscious mind directly. We have to sneak up on it with our conscious thoughts.

Here’s a concept that is worth considering. Our conscious mind’s thoughts serve as the rudder that engages our boat. [00:27:00] Our conscious mind’s thoughts are taken by our unconscious mind and acted upon. Emotions are an unconscious mind thing. We can’t directly control them. We can try and control how much of the emotion we’re feeling we show to somebody, but we can’t control the feeling part, because once we believe something to be true, the emotions flow from those beliefs automatically.

Our unconscious mind salutes and says, Aye aye, Captain. The key is to understand that the access point to change emotions like anxiety, competitive anxiety, is to change the way we think in our conscious mind. Change the position of the runder, You change the direction of the boat. It’s very simplistic, but it’s profoundly true.

And how many people do a good job policing their thoughts? Very, very few. Even though we have 100 percent control over our conscious mind’s thoughts, because I can choose to think about one thing, or I can choose to think about something else. I can choose to focus on [00:28:00] one thing, or I can choose to focus on something else.

It’s my choice. Most people don’t make that choice, and they don’t execute control over their conscious mind’s thoughts. They simply interact with their environment, and they allow the environmental situation and circumstances to infect their conscious mind’s thoughts. They don’t police their conscious mind’s thoughts in the face of those environmental circumstances.

It’s not what champions do, but it’s what the vast majority of people do. We don’t do a good job controlling our thoughts. We just react to our environment. That’s why people are good when things are going well, and they suck when they’re not. That’s a scientific term.

Crew Chief Eric: So what do champions do?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: They control their internal environment.

They control their focus of attention. I am absolutely confident of this fundamental truth. The single most important mental skill in any profession, in any occupation, from any culture around the planet is this. The ability to control the [00:29:00] deployment of my focus of attention so that it is directed to what matters in the moment that it does to the exclusion of everything else in that moment that exists as noise.

That’s also what mental toughness is. The ability to do that. In the face of the most hectic, crazy, chaotic environment. To control the deployment of my focus so it is correctly oriented in the moment when it must be. Simple enough, isn’t it? And you know what the advantage is? When I do that, when I stay present, when I stay engaged with what I’m doing fully, I never have anxiety.

Because anxiety only happens when I allow my focus to shift away from what I’m doing to start considering the consequences of what I’m doing, especially if I fear that I won’t do it.

Crew Chief Eric: So doc, I think we stepped backwards into rule number three, which is you cannot not think about whatever [00:30:00] is on your mind.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: I don’t want you to think about the next thing I’m going to describe for you, right? I don’t want you to picture in your mind’s eye a huge pink elephant. Wearing purple boxer shorts with great big yellow dots splashed all over it. Hard to do, isn’t it? What is the only way you could not see the pink elephant with the purple shorts and yellow dots?

Crew Chief Eric: You have to already be thinking about something else and blocking it out. Ah,

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: use the truth of rule number two. Because rule number two says the conscious mind can only actively process one thought at a time. If I was vividly picturing in my mind the blue squirrel with the orange bushy tail, I probably would not have seen the pink elephant with the purple shorts.

I use a focus on one thought to deny my processor the capacity to focus on another one.

Crew Chief Brad: But then, if someone’s talking to you and they tell you to do something, you have to turn them off, so you have to turn off outside noise and outside [00:31:00] inputs.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: It’s a skill, you practice it. Have you ever been bred in a situation where, say, you’re doing something and you’re really focused on it and there’s commotion close to you?

And you don’t even notice it. And someone says to you, Could you believe that thing that happened? And you look up and you say, Huh? Because you weren’t even aware of it. Why were you not aware of it? Because you were so intently focused on what you were doing that you effectively had a shield up. And you never process that other distraction.

You can still use directed focus to shut down the noise from elsewhere. Because rule number two is true. Conscious mind can only actively process one thought at a time.

Crew Chief Eric: So I actually like rule number three quite a bit because I find it analogous to some of the things that we teach our students when we’re coaching.

And one of the things that came right to mind as we were talking about this is in a situation where you’ve lost control of the vehicle. Do not look where you don’t want the card to go. Meaning if you [00:32:00] see that guardrail or that arm co and you’re focused on it, that’s exactly where the car is going to go.

Now everybody says your hands go where your eyes go. I get it, but it’s a conscious decision to avert yourself and say, I need to escape. I need to look for an exit route. I’m glad

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: you made that second point because I was going to jump on you a little bit because the reality of it is. If I say to you, now whatever happens, make sure you’re not looking at the trees.

What’s the imagery that you employed as I made that suggestion, looking at the trees? As a high performance driver, coach, you want to tell them what you don’t want them to do because it’s of the consequence, but you never leave it there. You turn it and you add to it, what I do want you to do is this, I want you to look for the openings.

Look for the gap. Keep your eyes glued on the gap, and your hands and your feet will take you there. You don’t just say, whatever you do, don’t get too wide there, because if you get out too wide, you’ll end up on the marbles. And if you’re on the marbles, front [00:33:00] end’s gonna wash out, and you’re gonna plant the front of the car right in those tires, right near the pink bush.

So whatever you do, don’t get out too wide. What did you picture that whole time? The pink bush. And your hands and feet will do exactly what your mind led it to do. So you tell them what you don’t want them to do, but you then tell them what you do want them to do, and how it looks and feels and smells and tastes when you do it the right way.

And that is also true when you’re self coaching. Don’t just keep telling yourself what you don’t want to do. Remind yourself of what you don’t want to do, but then tell yourself as vividly as you can what it looks like when you do it the right way. How it looks and feels and smells and tastes, what the timing of it is, what the smoothness is, how the transitions feel when it’s done correctly.

Because the more of that imagery you can put in there, the more your unconscious mind salutes, snaps to attention, and in fact takes you in that direction. Rule number four.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I think we’re backing into that one as well. But to your point about rule number three, one of the things that I try [00:34:00] to employ with my students, slightly different technique than other coaches would use.

But at some point during the weekend, I actually have them talk me through the track. Now they’ve learned in their own vernacular and their own syntax, what a lap should look like based on what I’ve instructed them on. But what I’ve come to realize not only by reciting, The track over and over again to themselves.

They’re memorizing it in that sense, but they’re also catching their own mistakes because they say turn in and then they don’t or break now and they didn’t. So they begin that whole continuous improvement cycle. It’s

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: reprogramming. They’re actually reprogramming their unconscious mind by using their conscious thoughts as a guidebook.

It is the rudder. That steers the direction of the boat.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s get back to rule number four. What is rule number four?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Rule number four says your dominant thought, whatever you choose to make dominant in your conscious mind, it determines your emotions, your behaviors, and ultimately your ability to perform, but it must be dominant.

[00:35:00] Whatever thoughts you put into your conscious mind become the rudder that steer the direction of your boat. Be careful what you put in there, because once you believe something to be true, it becomes truth. Whether it’s true or not is absolutely irrelevant. If you believe something to be true, it becomes your truth, and your unconscious mind acts on that, because that’s its job.

Its job is to accept what the conscious mind tells it, and to take you in that direction. It doesn’t care if it’s true or not. If you say, I’m a loser, there’s no way I can do this, I’m a failure, your unconscious mind snaps to attention and says, loser, yes sir, I can take care of that for you.

Crew Chief Eric: So how does one control their dominant

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: thoughts?

Ah, rule number five is the key. It says, we are in control of our conscious mind’s dominant thought. We have 100 percent control. We have to

Crew Chief Eric: prioritize.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Well, the first thing is we have to recognize that we’re in control and then accept that we are, then we [00:36:00] actually have to execute the control. And what does executing control mean?

It means we have to recognize when we’re drifting. Off the ideal line, because the sooner we catch ourself drifting, the less of an off we’re having and the less of a correction it takes to get back on the right line. If we don’t catch ourself until we’re way off, four wheels off, pointing in the wrong direction, the amount of correction and the time it takes is substantially greater.

We have to become better at eavesdropping on the mind chatter. Going on inside of her own head. Think about this. If I eavesdrop on that little voice inside my head, and I think about the script that it’s playing, Will that not give me a great deal of clarity on what it is I’m focused on in that moment?

The script will define what I’m focused on. Whether it’s an external focus or an internal focus, the little voice will tell me where [00:37:00] my thoughts are. And if I check in and I just eavesdrop and I say, well, wait a second now, you’re worrying about something that you can’t control and hasn’t even happened yet.

Don’t go there. Go here instead. This you can control. This matters now. Go here. And it’s about small adjustments

Crew Chief Eric: in the world of endurance racing, which I’m sure you’ve come into contact with many drivers that have participated in things like the 24 hours of spa or the 24 hours, the Nürburgring or Rolex, etc.

Right. How do you get them to clear their minds, let’s use that phrase, for long periods of time where they don’t have thoughts that are domineering what they’re doing because they need to be extremely consistent for long periods of time and those one hour and three hour and six hour stints that they’re in the car, how do you train them to, to settle?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: What do you do with your students? You tell them to hit their marks and then rinse and repeat. If the focus that each of those people takes. Is [00:38:00] a perfect approach, perfect breaking, perfect turn in, perfect apex, perfect exit, or however one divides the corner, right? Because there’s different strategies. If that becomes my focus, And then I simply rinse and repeat throughout my stint.

Simplifies things, doesn’t it? I don’t have to compete with a lot of other thoughts. All I have to do is focus on the perfect approach I’m doing now, then the perfect application of the break, perfect turn in, the perfect apex, and the perfect exit. I don’t have competing thoughts intruding themselves in there if I steer my flashlight to those tasks.

Isn’t that true? It’s not easy for an hour and a half on a double stint, an hour and forty minutes, but with practice you get better and better at doing it. And the more relaxed you are, the more calm you are, the more likely you are to pull it off.

Crew Chief Brad: Looking ahead to rule number six and seven, your perspective concerning the challenges that you face determines your dominant [00:39:00] thought and your emotional response.

Choose your perspective carefully these rules before we dive into them. They actually make me think of a book that I read I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of David Goggins. Yeah. Yes. He’s a fascinating person He’s got the concept of callous the mind which is very similar to what you were saying earlier where you’ve got to lean in to your challenges and your thoughts and everything and Exercise control.

Yeah. If you have, if nobody, if the listeners haven’t read his book, it’s called Can’t Hurt Me. It’s an amazing read. I recommend the audio book. ’cause he, he reads it to you and it’s, it’s fascinating. He’s, he’s a real BAMF mm-Hmm. to, to, to be a little crass. But rule six kind of strikes me as it kind of, sort of callous the mind kind of, kind of concept.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Yeah, it is. In a way, I, I guess I’d add another layer to it. I would put it this way. Make sure that you make the right choice. Because perspective is a choice. I can choose to see the glass as half empty or I can choose to see it as half full. What people don’t realize is that choosing to see it as [00:40:00] half empty tends to make me a pessimist.

We’re choosing it as half full makes me an optimist that influences the direction of my boat because my unconscious mind keeps me there. A lot of people fail to do, I think, is to recognize that our mindset is highly infectious. People around us will catch it. And I think the question we should ask ourselves more often is this, is mine worth catching today?

And if the answer is no, maybe it isn’t, maybe I should change my mindset. Because the basic truth is people around us will catch it. Our mindset will impact other people. Just in the same way as theirs influences us. If you’re always around a pessimist, what does it tend to do to a group? Brings a group down.

If you’re always around an optimist, what does it do? Tends to bring the group up. Why? Because we get infected. Rule number seven. Rule number seven simply says, If you do what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always gotten. If you want something different, you need to approach it with a different mindset.

Because if you keep [00:41:00] doing the same thing time and time and time again and expecting a different result, as Mr. Einstein postulated decades ago, It is the definition of insanity. It’s physics. In this case, it’s psychology. Relatively speaking. Relatively speaking. Exactly. So, rule number seven is sort of the bonus rule at the end of the car commercial where the guy says it with a low voice very fast.

The real key rules are the first six. Because they tie together, and they present a framework that if I respect those rules in the way that I think, I will not only bring the best version of myself from a performance point of view to everything that I do, but I will crush anxiety from my life. If I violate those rules, I will sabotage myself.

My performance will be less than it is capable of, and I will create states of anxiety that I live with. Simple as that. Fundamentally true, universally applicable, infallible.

Crew Chief Eric: So that said, you know, many of us are, as you said earlier, the average Joe suffering from different forms of [00:42:00] things on this list, whether it be the A factors or the B factors.

How do we put all this together in summary and take ourselves to the next level to become champions?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Okay. I’ve given this a lot of thought over the decades, and I’m going to summarize what I think the secret to performance is, and I don’t care whether you’re a surgeon, a musician, a combat pilot, race car driver, or a business executive.

The key is to control the deployment of my focus of attention so that I direct it to what I can control, to the right thing at the right time, so that I don’t waste that capacity focusing on things I can’t control and that haven’t even happened yet. Control over deployment of my focus of attention so that it is on what matters in the moment that it does full stop.

That is the holy grail of the performance equation. It’s like the

Crew Chief Brad: serenity prayer

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: in a way, isn’t it? It’s exactly the serenity prayer. It’s nothing I’ve said today that people don’t already know I just package it in a different way and create a framework that maybe helps people [00:43:00] gain clarity on how the pieces are connected Because they are all connected.

We haven’t talked about how the conscious mind and the unconscious mind work together There’s a lot of things we haven’t talked about but they’re all tied together Ultimately, it’s about conscious mind dominant thought and policing

Crew Chief Brad: those thoughts So, Doc, are you going to tell us how to implement these rules or do we have to call you?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Well, you know what you can do? There’s things you can read, for starters. There’s podcasts you can listen to. This is one of them, give you some insight. You can go to my, uh, link tree. address, www. dardelaire, my name, D A L L A I R E dot C O. That will take you to my link tree. You can check out the website, you can look at some books I’ve written, but there’s also some podcasts there, of which this will be one of them at some point down the road, that I’ve been a guest on with the, uh, different people around the world where I talk about this stuff.

And you might get some insight from that. Something that twigs you and you say, you know what? I never thought of it that way. That makes a lot of sense. I’m going [00:44:00] to start controlling that, or I’m going to start trying to implement that thought process. And the more you do it, the better you get at it.

These are skills. So they’re skill sets, mental skill sets.

Crew Chief Eric: In closing, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t cover, maybe some upcoming seminars, some tours that you’re on, things like that, where people could get a more in depth look into what we’ve been talking about here.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: The books might be useful. I’ve written three, one in particular, the third one is a very niche book because it’s about law enforcement and the military. Uh, the first one is a much broader, has more science in it. I call it performance thinking, mental skills for competition and for life. The second one I wrote out of frustration at seeing parents destroy their kids, meaning to help them, not realizing that they’re sabotaging them.

The title is helping kids perform mental skills. Every parent, teacher, and coach should master. I definitely need that one. Well, you know what? It goes back to the fact that [00:45:00] society keeps telling us that it’s good to worry about results, that we should focus on results because results are so difficult.

And unfortunately our kids listen to us. So what they end up doing is they’re constantly fearing that they’re not going to live up to the results that are expected of them. And the more they fear that they’re going to fail, the more they fixate on the gap between where they are and they believe they need to be at the expense of what they’re doing.

And it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and their anxiety goes through the roof. And those kids are afraid to try anything challenging in case they might fail. So they live in the middle rut of life.

Crew Chief Eric: And that’s a very important point that you bring up. And I remind my daughters constantly, I even have this posted on my eldest daughter’s.

door so that she sees it on her way in and out of school every day is that stop being afraid of what could go wrong and get excited for what could go right.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: That is in fact an expression of rule number six, isn’t it? Your perspective on how These [00:46:00] challenges appear influences your emotional response.

Instead of worrying about failure, get excited about the potential to learn and be successful. You’re looking at exactly the same challenge, but you’re seeing it as half full rather than half empty. And that changes everything.

Crew Chief Brad: Not to harp on David Goggins. I just find him fascinating, but he’s got something similar, not quite the same, but he’s got the account, the accountability mirror.

So you, you, you list out all the things that you need to focus on and then you hold yourself accountable. Every morning you look in the mirror and did you do anything to further these?

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: You know, these goals and these, this, this mindset, this belief system, this version of yourself really, right?

Crew Chief Brad: And you have hard conversations with yourself every day.

The ACT model

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: process is a process that I teach that is effectively a behavior modification tool and it’s incredibly powerful. It integrates neuro linguistic programming, control theory, psycho cybernetics, and rational emotive behavior therapy into something that’s easy and doable. And it’s proven around the world because I have a lot [00:47:00] of high performance people who have act models.

Many of them are on this paddock right now. I’m ready to sign up.

Crew Chief Brad: So, well, first of all, thank you. You’re welcome. Thank you for, for coming. This has been very insightful and I’m no longer worried or I’ve got more confidence. So I’m ready to go.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Well, you know what? Just remember this. If you insist on aligning confidence with outcome, you’ll always be on a roller coaster because you can’t control outcome.

Instead, align confidence with the commitment and the willingness to step in, to lean into the challenge, and to give it your all. It’s probably the thing that has affected my life personally the most in the last 50 years, is this understanding and this belief. Not just an intellectual belief, but an emotional, I trust in the truth of this.

It is impossible, impossible for me to do better than the best I can do. If in the moment I give the best I’ve got, wishing it to be better would never make it better. Worrying [00:48:00] about being good enough will never make it better. If I bring the best I’ve got, it will generate the best result possible on that day, in that moment, except for the B factors I can’t control, and there’s no sense worrying about them because I can’t control them.

Simplifies life a lot, doesn’t it? And you know what it does? It gives us license to stop worrying about results. So that we can pour all of our capacity into the execution of process, which in the end is what drives the results anyway.

Crew Chief Brad: Dr. Delaer has helped more than 800 racers from around the world meet and even exceed their performance goals.

To find out more about the Performance Prime Mental Skills program, be sure to log on to www.drdaire.co. That’s D-R-D-L-L-A-I-R e.co for all the website social, as well as contact information so you can work with Dr. Delair to increase your focus mental control. And

Crew Chief Eric: with that [00:49:00] doc, I cannot thank you enough for coming on break fix and giving us an insight into this side of motor sports, the mental side of the game and having this conversation.

I hope that people do reach out to you for assistance and how they can become champions as well.

Dr. Jacques Dallaire: Well, thank you very much for the invite, and I think I would simply cast the net a little broader. The stuff we’ve been talking about applies not just in motorsport, but in every facet of life, so don’t be afraid to apply it to your personal relationships, to your work life, to your hobbies, beyond motorsport, because this is about how human beings think, and how the way we think influences how we feel, how we behave, and ultimately how we perform.

And everybody wants to be successful. I’ve never met a single person who actually wants to be a loser.

Crew Chief Brad: 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 [00:50:00] Instagram at GrandTouring Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, You can call or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

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

For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers Fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gummy bears, and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT motor sports, and [00:51:00] remember without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Highlights

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

  • 00:00 Introduction to Break/Fix Podcast
  • 00:27 The Essence of Competition
  • 00:51 Mental Sabotage in Racing
  • 01:24 Interview with Dr. Jacques Dallaire
  • 02:42 Understanding Mental Sabotage
  • 07:10 The Performance Equation
  • 15:50 Confidence and Experience
  • 21:26 Rules of the Mental Road
  • 24:01 Understanding Focus and Attention
  • 25:56 The Role of Practice in Building Muscle Memory
  • 26:42 Harnessing the Power of the Unconscious Mind
  • 27:50 The Importance of Controlling Thoughts
  • 28:45 Mental Toughness and Anxiety Management
  • 31:40 The Power of Visualization in Performance
  • 34:47 Dominant Thoughts and Performance
  • 37:15 Endurance Racing and Sustained Focus
  • 38:51 The Impact of Perspective on Performance
  • 42:03 Summary and Implementation of Mental Skills
  • 44:10 Resources and Final Thoughts

Bonus Content

Learn More

The rules of the Mental Road

  • Rule #1 – if you want to climb out of a hole, the very first thing you must do is STOP digging!
  • Rule #2 – The conscious mind can on actively process one thought at a time
  • Rule #3 – You can’t NOT think about whatever is on your mind
    • Analogous to “don’t look where you don’t want to put the car” << loss of control situation
  • Rule #4 – Your dominant thought determines your emotions, your behaviors and ultimately, your ability to Perform!
  • Rule #5 – You ARE in control of your Dominant Thought!
  • Rule #6 – Your perspective concerning the challenges that you face determines your Dominant Thought and your emotional response. Choose your Perspective carefully!
  • Rule #7 – If you do what you’ve always done, You will get what you’ve always gotten. If you want something different, You must approach the day-to-day challenges you face with a different mindset.

Dr. Dallaire has helped more than 800 racers from around the world meet and even exceed their performance goals. To find out more about the Performance Prime mental skills program be sure to logon to www.drdallaire.co for all the website, social as well as contact information so you can work with Dr. Dallaire to increase your focus, mental control and maximize your performance. 

Imagine your concentration as a beam of light. You can narrow it to a spotlight or widen it to a floodlight. The skill lies in knowing when to adjust. On a straightaway, you might reflect on strategy. In a corner battle, you need to be fully present. Thinking about a mistake from two corners ago? You’re already compromising the next one.

Don't focus on the Pink Elephant

The Seven Rules of the Mental Road

Dr. Dallaire outlines seven rules that govern mental performance:

  1. Stop Digging – Recognize when you’re sabotaging yourself with “what if” thoughts.
  2. One Thought at a Time – Your conscious mind can only process one thing. Make it count.
  3. You Can’t Not Think About It – Telling yourself “don’t crash” only makes you picture crashing.
  4. Dominant Thought Drives Behavior – What you focus on becomes your truth.
  5. You Control Your Dominant Thought – Eavesdrop on your inner voice and redirect it.
  6. Perspective Shapes Emotion – Choose optimism. See challenges as opportunities.
  7. Change the Pattern – If you want different results, think differently.

Confidence Without Outcome

Most people tie confidence to results. But results are B-factors. Dr. Dallaire urges racers – and anyone striving for excellence – to align confidence with effort and commitment. Lean into the challenge, win or lose. “If you insist on aligning confidence with outcome, you’ll always be on a roller coaster.”

From endurance stints at Spa to daily life, consistency comes from mental discipline. Dr. Dallaire’s ACT model blends neuro-linguistic programming, control theory, and behavior therapy into a practical toolkit. Whether you’re a racer, parent, teacher, or executive, these skills apply.

Society teaches us to chase results. Kids absorb that pressure, fearing failure and avoiding challenges. Dr. Dallaire’s advice? Flip the script. Focus on what could go right. Encourage process over perfection. And remember: mindset is contagious.

Dr. Dallaire has worked with over 800 racers worldwide, helping them unlock their mental potential. His message is clear: success starts in the mind. Whether you’re behind the wheel or facing life’s daily races, control your focus, lean into the challenge, and trust the process.


Other Recommended Reads

Reading List

Don't miss out on great book like this one, or other titles we've read and covered as part of the GTM Bookclub on Break/Fix Podcast.
My Travels On Racer Road: Can-Am and Formula 1 in their golden age
DeLorean: The Rise, Fall and Second Acts of the DeLorean Motor Company
A French Kiss with Death
Driving to the Future: Living life following Formula One racing
Tales From the Garage
Geared for Life: Making the Shift Into Your Full Potential
Ultimate Garages
Fenders, Fins & Friends: Confessions of a Car Guy
Racing While Black: How an African-American Stock Car Team Made Its Mark on NASCAR
The Last Lap: The Mysterious Demise of Pete Kreis at The Indianapolis 500
James Dean: On The Road To Salinas
Performance Thinking: Mental Skills for the Competitive World...and for Life!
The Other Side of the Fence: Six Decades of Motorsport Photography
Racing with Rich Energy
Little Anton: A Historical Novel Complete Series
Lone Rider: The First British Woman to Motorcycle Around the World
Iacocca: An Autobiography
Colin Chapman: The Man and His Cars: The Authorized Biography by Gerard Crombac
Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World
Shipwrecked and Rescued: Cars and Crew: The


Gran Touring Motorsports's favorite books »

Goodreads

Gran Touring's book recommendations, liked quotes, book clubs, book lists (read shelf)

The following content has been brought to you by SRO Motorsports America and their partners at AWS, Crowdstrike, Fanatec, Pirelli, and the Skip Barber Racing School.

HPDE Starter Pack!

As we head into the fall, we’ve been getting some questions from folks about “what’s the best way” to get themselves, their friends, or loved ones on track. And it got me thinking, most of Season-1 of Break/Fix was devoted to exposing people to the world of Motorsports, especially High Performance Drivers Education (HPDE).

Below is our best-of #tbt for all things related to getting on track!


Want to ask us questions or learn from our Guests? Join our new Break/Fix Discord!

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Why Track Day Insurance Matters: Inside OpenTrack’s Mission to Protect Passionate Drivers

For many motorsports enthusiasts, the track is more than just asphalt and apexes – it’s a sanctuary. A third place between home and work, where adrenaline meets community. But for all the joy that comes with pushing your car to its limits, there’s always that nagging “what if?” – the fear of damage, liability, or worse. That’s where OpenTrack Insurance steps in.

In a recent episode of the Break/Fix podcast, Brett Larson, Head of Sales at OpenTrack, joined the conversation to unpack the company’s origin story, its unique approach to coverage, and why it’s become a game-changer for track day drivers across North America.

OpenTrack was founded in 2013 by Ben Phillips, who saw a glaring hole in the insurance landscape while researching coverage for Palm Beach International Raceway. Existing policies were restrictive – limited vehicle values, sanctioned events only, high deductibles, and single-event coverage. Ben envisioned something better: a product built for the lifestyle of serious drivers.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

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Inspired by Howard Schultz’s idea of Starbucks as a “third place,” Ben saw the track as that same kind of refuge for enthusiasts. He dove into market research, spoke with clubs and drivers, and even cold-called Aston Martin owners. The result? A policy that flipped the script: coverage for high-value vehicles, non-sanctioned events, low deductibles, and annual unlimited memberships.

Spotlight

Synopsis

In this episode of Break/Fix, the focus is on OpenTrack, an insurance provider that caters to track day enthusiasts.  Crew Chief Eric, interviews Brett Larson, head of sales for OpenTrack, about the company’s origins, their offerings, and the motivation behind their unique insurance products. Brett details OpenTrack’s comprehensive and flexible insurance solutions tailored for high-performance track cars, including options for single events and year-long coverage. They discuss the product’s inception by CEO Ben Phillips, who identified a gap in the market for track day insurance. The conversation addresses various coverage aspects, from on-track incidents and liability to vehicle valuation and deductibles. Additionally, Brett talks about OpenTrack’s Drive Better program, offering participants free driver coaching and various resources to improve their skills. The episode concludes with contact information for listeners interested in learning more or providing feedback on OpenTrack’s services.

  • Origin Story: Who/What/When/Where/How was OpenTrack formed? 
  • What kinds of Motorsports does OpenTrack cover?
  • Let’s get down to some specific listener questions about your coverage:
    • What about an incident in the paddock? What about in transit? Is the trailer covered? What if something happens while the car is on the trailer, etc. 
    • What drivers are covered under the policy. When I’ve called I’ve been told that anyone that drives the car is covered, but when registering an event in the policy online I must list drivers and can only add two.
    • When is fire damage covered by track insurance? I’ve heard that a car that catches fire is only covered if the fire happens in connection with a collision.
    • If a car has a declared value that is higher than the KBB value and it is totaled, what is the maximum payout? Would it be the full declared value or KBB value plus the value (replacement cost?) of the modifications?
    • We’ve also heard that OpenTrack is the only Track Insurance provider that will cover vehicles with a declared value over 150k?
    • How much personal liability insurance is provided when track insurance for a vehicle is purchased?
    • Does track insurance cover the driver’s liability for damage done to the track (i.e., will OpenTrack pay for tire barrier/wall repairs or track cleanup?).
    • In the event of a “Total Loss”, how can the owner retain the damaged vehicle for salvage or parts?
  • How does someone sign up for OpenTrack Insurance? What are the costs/plans? Are there packages? How do you determine “declared value?”
  • OpenTrack also offers the “Drive Better” program, what’s that all about?

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motor sports related. There’s always a reason not to do something, and in our case, it’s that gnawing, clawing feeling of what if holding us back from trying Motorsports. We were all there once.

Many of us aren’t anymore, and that’s a result of organizations like Open Track that make it possible to have total coverage of your prized vehicle no matter what happens at an event. Open Track’s, flexible track day. Insurance solutions allow drivers to do what they love most. Get more time behind the wheel and on track from single event policies to 365 day coverage.

You get the insurance you need when you need it. And with us tonight to discuss why you should protect yourself and your vehicle investment with Open Track is Brett Larson, head of sales for Open Track Insurance. So Brett, welcome, welcome [00:01:00] to Break Fix. Thanks, Erics. Thanks for inviting me. Like every good break fix episode, we always start with the who, what, where, when, and why.

So let’s talk about the origin story behind open track. Yeah, yeah. It’s a pretty good one, great place to start. So open track is, I’d say in its infancy, even though we’ve been around for. About eight years now. But back in 2013, Ben Phillips, who is our C E O and our creator was at the time a private client producer, and he had a unique inquiry or request from someone that asked him to find a market for commercial lines coverage for Palm Beach International Raceway.

As he was researching carrier options for that inquiry, he realized there was also. A need or a gap for the tracks private club members and other track day enthusiasts who were tracking at that club on the weekends. And so what he had found is that the existing carriers that were offering coverage for track day, it was limited.

They were limited to just up to a hundred k, single [00:02:00] vehicle value. They were only offering coverage for sanctioned H P D E events. That’s high performance driver education. They were only offering higher deductibles. And there were only offering single event coverage. And so Ben saw that gap and he said to himself, these people are trying to get out to the track.

And some of them are going often. There’s some of them also that were driving higher valued vehicles. He also had read some research at the time indicating that the number of drivers and the hobby were in fact growing at a pretty good pace. Howard Schultz, the c e o of Starbucks once said, Starbucks serves as a third place between home and work.

An extension between people’s lives at a time when people have no place to go. Ben saw the same situation happening with track day enthusiasts. They were going home work, and their third place was the track. So he began doing additional market research, extensive market research. He talked to drivers, he was talking to motor sports enthusiasts, anyone he could find that was connected into this [00:03:00] lifestyle and sport to gather feedback.

And one of the conversations he had at the time was a cold call. Actually to Nick Candy, who was associated with the Aston Martin car club. Ben talked to him for more than an hour. Who wants to have a conversation about insurance for an hour? Right? I mean, that’s just the first question I have from this conversation.

Bill. Ben knew there was a great passion for this sport, for this hobby, but something was missing, and that’s the point where the spark for open track was lit. So Ben decided he was gonna build the product. That would fit the lifestyle of the passionate and serious drivers and be something they actually wanted as well.

People need to buy insurance, and of course they benefit from it, but most insurance products aren’t built for them and they don’t desire to purchase it. Open track is a business. Was built to break that mold, so we did exactly the opposite of the other carrier. We insured only vehicles greater than a hundred thousand dollars value.

We ensured all track time that was non-competitive. Regardless of whether the event [00:04:00] was sanctioned, we offered a low deductible and we offered annual unlimited membership. Now, initially, because Ben was a producer, he thought that this product would be an appetizer to bring in clients for cross-sell opportunities, home auto umbrella, you know, those basic coverages focused on private client where this kind of plays.

However, he quickly found that open track was a self-sustaining business built around the lifestyle of passionate drivers who wanted to drive faster and drive better. We started getting comments from clients such as, this is the first time I’ve purchased an insurance product that I feel was built specifically for me.

In the early stages, and based on actual client feedback, the open track product and form was iterated 20 plus times. We took client feedback very seriously. In 2018, we dropped down to ensure vehicles as low as $30,000 value. Additionally, we added track day liability coverage, and in 2021 we launched. Our drive better program, which includes free driver coaching, access to hobby [00:05:00] specific webinars, and some other things on demand.

While the pace of iteration has slowed down, our desire to continue enhancing our offering and to provide greater value to our clients has not changed. We’ll continue to put the client at the center of our universe and we’re going to try to help people drive more and drive better. Wow. There’s a lot to unpack there.

And we have some very detailed questions that some of our audience has asked us to relay to you, and we’ll go through that in a q and a type of session here. And I think one of the first ones that needs to be addressed is, as you guys have grown, do you still only cover H B D E or do you cover other types of motorsports as well?

So open track will. Cover any track time on road courses on our covered tracks that is non-competitive. So obviously that’s gonna include the H P D E events, but it also includes, and this is where we really become competitive, is the private track days. So there’s a lot of private track clubs popping up throughout the country.

There are [00:06:00] memberships, like a golf membership, like you go to the golf club, these drivers are going to their track. And so as long as the driver is tracking at one of our 120 covered tracks, Most in the US, but some is well in Canada and they’re not participating in a competitive event, they’d be eligible for coverage.

So one of the other questions that comes up a lot is, what about an incident in the paddock? Is that covered? So our product is on track only, so it’s on the track surface. Our products do not cover. While in the paddock though, there are products available in the marketplace for the paddock as well as if it’s a, a vehicle that they’re bringing on the track, which I’ll back up.

We actually do cover both regular road use vehicles as well as track only vehicles. So if that vehicle is a road use vehicle, that driver probably has a policy in place to cover them for that. That would cover them up to getting to the track. There is that bit of a gap in the middle for the paddock.

There are products out there in the marketplace that would cover that. So that answers the next question, which is [00:07:00] does the policy cover the vehicle in transit? Is the trailer covered? What if something happens while the car is on the trailer? Things like that. So that’s probably a no, right? Correct. Yes.

It’s not covered until it hits the track surface with our products. When you talk about the policy, not only does it usually cover the car, but it also covers the driver. So one of the other questions that gets fielded is what drivers are covered under the policy? Because when folks have called, they’ve been told that anyone that drives the car is covered.

But when registering for the event policy online, you have to list all the drivers. Maybe there’s a maximum you can set there. How does that work for open track? Our products, we do not limit. Or cap, the number of drivers, additional drivers that can be added to our policies, and that’s either our daily policy or our annual program.

No additional costs for adding drivers. The only limitation that we have is that the drivers must be at least 25 years old. We do not insure anyone less than that. That [00:08:00] said, if a policy holder is being professionally instructed, the instructor would be covered automatically as a driver without having to have them be specifically added to the policy for any other additional driver situations.

However, the person must be specifically listed for coverage to apply. Let’s say there’s an instance where. A coach or an instructor is driving the policy holder’s vehicle, maybe showing them some laps, doing some things like that, and something occurs, whether it’s mechanical, there’s an incident, whatever.

Does the policy suddenly change? Let’s say that instructor is not listed on that person’s policy either, right? They didn’t add them. How does that all play out? If the instructor is in the process of instructing them, then they are covered automatically as a driver. For any damages that would occur to that vehicle.

Another one of our listeners asks, when is fire damage covered by track insurance? I’ve heard that if a car catches fire, it is only covered if the fire [00:09:00] happens in connection with a collision. True or false? That is true. Yes. Our policy will provide coverage for damage to the vehicle only when caused by a collision.

Mechanical failure or other similar losses would not be a A covered cause of loss? Yes. So if you blow a fuel line or something happens that you’re on your own, at that point it’s not covered? Correct. Another question that came across our desk. If a car has a declared value that is higher than the Kelly Blue Book value, and it is totaled, what is the maximum payout?

Would it be the full declared value or Kelly Blue Book value plus parts replacement? Costs of the modification? So it gets really complicated with track cars. So how do you guys determine what the full value is? So our policy is written on a stated amount basis. And what that means is that in the event of a covered loss, we will pay out the lesser of the cost to repair or replace.

So if a vehicle is determined to be a total loss at the time of a claim, the maximum that would be paid out is the coverage limit on the [00:10:00] policy minus the deductible Of course. If the value of the vehicle at the time of the loss then is less than the coverage limit on the policy, and the vehicle is determined to be a total loss, then the client would be indemnified up to the amount of the actual value of the vehicle, which might not be that limit that they have on their policy.

This is why it is very imperative. That vehicles are insured to the most accurate replacement cost or market value, including any upgrades or enhancements. So our goal is to indemnify the driver so that they have the opportunity to replace that vehicle if they so choose. However, we don’t want them to be over-insured and paying for coverage they don’t need.

So reading between the lines there, basically you need to come to the table and make sure you’ve saved all of your receipts when you come up with that. Estimated value of your vehicle, right? It’s not just, well, it was a $4,000 Miata. There’s $25,000 worth of parts on top of it, making it, let’s say a $30,000 car, correct?

Yeah. We won’t need that for [00:11:00] policy issuance. That’s not part of our quoting or issuance process. But at the time of a claim, the vehicle owner would want to have that on hand to provide to the claims representative to provide a smooth process. So you talked earlier in the intro about the $30,000 entry point, that lower limit, is that still the case or has been dropped More and a segue from this conversation where we look at the total value of a race car, right?

It’s worth, or a track day car. It’s worth more in parts than it is whole. So does that play into, I can get my base $1,500 Miata. Up to 30 grand because let’s say it’s an s s M car that I took to a de, well, first of all, our lowest limit we offer is $30,000. Now, in the event of a loss, going back to my prior statement, we are not going to just automatically pay out that 30 k.

It’s still the lesser of cost. To repair or replace. So while we don’t go down below 30 K for a coverage limit, we can ensure vehicles that are of a lower value. The [00:12:00] driver would just have to know that we’re gonna pay up to the amount of the actual value on the vehicle. So what’s the deductible generally, right.

Our deductible on our daily policy program is 10% of the vehicle value. So that’s a flat amount multiplied by the value that they’ve chosen at coverage issuance. And then on the annual program, it’s a 5% deductible except for a few unique situations where it will still be the 10% and that would be McLarens.

Are still 10% on our annual program and vehicles greater than $300,000 are still a 10% deductible. So you’re looking at basically a minimum deductible of 3000 bucks if you’re coming in at that lowest threshold. Now, obviously it climbs from there with certain caveats for the really. Much more expensive vehicles.

150,000 and above, let’s just say. Correct. As you mentioned and we’ve heard before, open Track is the only track insurance provider that will cover vehicles with a declared value over $150,000. Is that true? [00:13:00] False? Yes, very true. Will insure vehicles up to a value on a single vehicle of $500,000. So as far as our coverage is concerned, we do not require that the vehicle be a registered vehicle.

We’ll cover registered vehicles and we’ll cover non-registered vehicles. The true track only cars, for instance, rush Auto Works. The Rush Sr is a non road legal vehicle. We’ll cover it. We will cover the G GT two rss, anything that’s not road licensed, and it could be a, an eligible vehicle for the road, but it may not be road titled and ready.

And so we will cover those. No problem. Those can be in our program. We don’t require it as long as they’re at an H P D event. As long as it’s non-competition, though, there are some vehicle types that we’ll not insure at this point. We do not insure Ferrari and we do not insure any open wheeled vehicles or formula cars, F cars, whatever you wanna call them, Ferrari specifically, we did ensure them until fairly recently.

However, what [00:14:00] ultimately put the nail in the coffin is that Ferrari accounted for very low percentage of our premiums, but a fairly high percentage of our losses. So that’s Ferrari across the board. So even if you have, let’s say, a Magnum PI 3 0 8, it’s not covered. It doesn’t matter what year it is. It doesn’t matter the year or the model.

And then on the open wheel side, not just F cars, but does this also include things like the KTM crossbow, the aerial atom, things like that, that are more open cockpit, open wheel type of vehicles? No, we will cover those cuz they are a semi-closed wheel. They’re not completely open. So we do the aerials and the cas and, and things like that.

You will cover those? Yes. Good to know. I mean, that’s a little asterisk on that open wheel idea, but, okay, so no formula cars, but then again, you’re not gonna see too many F class vehicles at a de either, right? Usually they don’t run at those types of events, not at de, but because we will cover private track clubs ah, and track them at those clubs.

A lot of those members do have those [00:15:00] types of vehicles. So another question from one of our listeners. How much personal liability insurance is provided when track insurance for a vehicle is purchased? I’ll start by saying, we are the only track day insurance product or products. That offer true liability coverage.

We have liability limits of 1 million and 2 million available. But I’d like to clarify this. Coverage is not mandatory. Drivers can purchase our physical damage coverage on its own if they’d like to, and then add the liability if they’re concerned with that exposure. Does open Track’s insurance cover the driver’s liability for damage done to the track?

For example, will open track pay for a tire barrier or tire wall repairs to the track or any sort of cleanup? Yes. If the client has purchased our liability coverage, it would cover damage to track property, including damage to a wall or the track surface. Additionally, it will also apply or cover fluid cleanup.

Do you [00:16:00] submit that as a separate claim or does that get submitted at the same time you’re putting in? Obviously there’s gonna be a collision claim here too. Are they all under one transaction or two separate ones? It would be a single claim transaction if it is in conjunction with. A collision? Yes. In the event of a total loss, how can the owner retain the damaged vehicle for salvage or for parts?

Each claim is unique. I’ll start by saying that, and so I cannot provide specifics. However, I can say that the client does have the opportunity to negotiate keeping their vehicle if and when it has been determined to be a total loss. So there is that negotiation process that takes place with the claims representative.

So this last one here is part of our 20 questions section of this, of this interview. It’s a little complicated, it’s multi-part, so hang on. One of our listeners writes What or who does the insurance cover? Does it cover the facility owner, the event organizers, third party me against what? [00:17:00] Respectively facilities, damage, harm and lawsuit, medical injury.

I feel like I’m watching one of those infomercials right now and the list continues to go on and on and on. So I guess it’s further refinement of. The caveats of the plan and what it can and can’t cover. Obviously we talked about being able to cover the tire barriers and the fluid cleanup, which is awesome.

So what other things are maybe buried in this policy that could be covered? Yeah, so the physical damage portion, uh, of the policy is pretty straightforward in that it covers damage to the insured’s vehicle from a collision while on track. The liability coverage covers property or bodily injury damages to a third party, so it’s going to extend for any damages that if I were a driver, that I cause to others who are external to my vehicle.

So pretty much everything external to my vehicle could be covered under that liability policy if I’m found liable for that damage. Additionally, the liability coverage does include legal defense coverage that would protect the client [00:18:00] in the event that they are brought into a lawsuit for their actions on track that coverage is provided without regard to fault, for no fault of their own.

They could be sued, but they still have the need to defend themselves. Our liability coverage is going to provide that defense coverage, and I get the facility and event organizer question as well because sometimes the track will pass fees on to the H P D E organizer and then the org. Organizer will pass those fees on again to the person that was involved in the incident.

Again, like we talked about submitting, you know, a separate transaction for the tire barrier and the fluid cleanup. If some other fees were passed on, are those also covered by the track insurance? I think that would have to come down to a very specific claims situation and a claims representative.

Possibly an expert would have to weigh in on that. It really comes down to liability. You know, from a liability standpoint, what were they responsible for? Did they do something that caused damage to someone else? So that’s why I say it has to come back to a specific claim situation, [00:19:00] because that gets into some legality as far as how the contract reads.

Absolutely. And then part of that, just to split hairs a little bit, because in this complex question that was posed, there was also the medical injury to themselves. You talked about to the other person at that point. That’s where you say asterisk. This is covered by your a, d and D or accidental death and dismemberment, or your life insurance and your personal medical insurance.

If something were to happen to you, let’s say the cause of the incident. Yes. So anyone inside of, again, I’ll put myself in the driver’s seat. If I’m in my vehicle, anyone in my vehicle, whether it’s myself or a potential passenger, there is no bodily injury coverage for anyone in the vehicle, like you said, would be covered by their health insurance or another product that they have that covers them for that type of loss.

Now, the ideal situation here is, let’s say it’s not a car on barrier collision. Let’s say it’s a car on car collision. Both cars are covered by track [00:20:00] insurance. At that point, let’s say. Open track would pay out to the other person to cover any injury, loss, whatever there. But the question I think that stems out of that is, let’s say that vehicle is a student and the instructor.

How does that work? Are they both covered in that instance? Uh, for bodily injury specifically? Yeah. Say the instructor and student were hit by someone with track insurance, open track specifically, they would be covered. Right? Yes, they would be yes, because they are external to the vehicle that we are ensuring, or our driver who we are ensuring when talking about liability that would be potentially covered for their bodily injuries.

Again, ideally, both vehicles would be covered by open track. Therefore, the person that got hit is covered and the person that did the hitting is also basically covered at that point, and both parties come out pretty much on top in the end, let’s just say. Yes, and let’s say both of those drivers are covered by open track and the liability or the the fault is difficult [00:21:00] to determine, then each of those persons would file a claim on their own policy for the damages.

Obviously, bodily injury might start playing into that because the policy for myself doesn’t include bodily injury for myself, so that could be sticky, but it is essentially a no fault policy for my damages. One of the mitigating factors, a lot of times, let’s say in regular insurance policies, has to do with the weather.

And many of us run rain or shine at the track. So that could be, to your point, one of those gray areas, like how did the accident actually occur, things like that. And luckily that’s pretty much null and void in this case. But is there an instance or scenario or use case. Where somebody would not be covered.

They did something, whether it’s negligence or something that would just null and void the policy. Yeah, unfortunately, Eric, I’m not able to speak to that. I don’t know if we’ve run into that in the past. All right, so let’s switch away from the inquisition here, away from our listener base questions, and now that we have a little bit more idea of how [00:22:00] this works, people are excited to sign up.

They’re hearing about open track for the first time. How do they go about getting their track insurance? What are the costs? Like? What are the plans? Are there different packages? Let’s dig a little deeper into declared value, and how do you step somebody through that process? Do they need to get an an appraisal?

You know, how does this whole thing work? Yeah, so I’ll start with how does someone sign up for our coverage? For open track, so our policies can be purchased on our website@opentrack.com. Our quoting is pretty simple. Quoting, underwriting, and issuance process is the quickest in the marketplace. With coverage issued in just a matter of minutes, the client will even have a policy document in their possession via email immediately after making payment for the coverage.

So there’s just a bit of information when they go out to the website to get through that quoting and underwriting process, the vehicle information, their name, their birthdate, any additional drivers they want to add to the policy, as well as whether they want both the [00:23:00] physical damage and the liability, or just the physical damage, or even just the liability coverage.

Once they’re enrolled, whether a daily policy purchase or an annual enrollment, the client will have access to their personalized online dashboard, and that’s where they’re really gonna access all of their information. They can make changes from that dashboard. They can inquire from that dashboard they can access.

A lot of what we’ll get to here in a moment, the drive Better program from that dashboard, the process itself is very simple from start to finish to get coverage put into place. Specifically when you’re talking about the valuation of the vehicle, the client will determine that value. We don’t have any tool available to them to use.

What I found is that a lot of these drivers do have a, a good idea of what their vehicle is worth. And so when they’re determining that vehicle value, they would want to include any upgrades in that valuation. They put in just the one limit when they’re going through the quoting process, and when I’m discussing this with clients, I tend to [00:24:00] rely upon multiple resources, at least as where I’m directing them, if they’re concerned with how to determine that value.

So I refer them back to vehicle valuation sites. For instance, Kelly Blue Book, auction sites purchase price. If they’ve just purchased the vehicle, that’s a pretty good place to start, right? That’s the current market value of that vehicle. They’ve just paid for it, or a professional appraisal. Some of these folks have a regular appraisal done on their vehicles, so they know exactly what that’s worth for insurance purposes or otherwise.

So say I sign up for an event, not that this has ever happened before. The day you’re supposed to go to the track, it snows and you need to reschedule because your event coordinator canceled the event on you. Or you know, maybe something else happens. Who knows. Right? Is it easy to move these policies around or are they locked into the dates?

You know, is there kind of a range check type of system? How does that work? That’s another great question. It’s one that comes up, you know, more than we’d like it. To this year, for instance, has been a pretty rough start to the season with weather related issues. [00:25:00] To answer your question, we have a couple different options.

The first option, and probably the easiest for that person is that from their personalized dashboard, they can actually go out and change the date if it’s the day before or earlier of the event. They can go into their dashboard and change the effective date to a future date. Now, that’s the only thing that they’d be able to change.

They wouldn’t be able to change the vehicle that’s being insured. They wouldn’t be able to change the track that they’re going to or the number of days that they’re going to that track. Oh, but interesting. So you can’t move from, let’s say, summit Point to Watkins Glen. You have to go to another Summit Point event.

Correct. With that process. Now, that’s not the only process we have available. We do also have, if that event has been truthfully canceled, which does happen, there is the option to cancel the policy altogether. That person, to your point, might not be going to Summit Point again in the next 30, 60, 90 days.

So we can cancel that policy [00:26:00] if it’s the day before or earlier, we would just take their word and they say, Hey, I’m not going to that event, and we’ll cancel the policy if it’s the day of or after. We would just ask for some sort of proof from the track day event coordinator or host of the event to indicate that that person did not participate.

Specifically, or the event was canceled. So what if that organizer doesn’t have another date at that track? Let’s say maybe they only go to that track once a year. Can you transfer it from one provider to another? Say maybe it’s h o d this weekend and then it’s Chin that’s gonna run there the next time and, and somebody else, but they don’t go to the same place twice.

Yeah, I know some of our competitors do, but our policies are not tied to a specific event coordinator or host. That’s not even a question that we ask in our process because that’s not a field or a bit of information taken into account for the purchase of that policy. It does not matter. So the only thing to change in a date down on a single event policy.[00:27:00]

Because we don’t ask for the event coordinator or the host, they’re just changing the event date. They just change the event date easy enough. So what if there’s a track you really want to go to? You’re a loyal open track customer and it’s not on the list. How do new tracks get added? Are they being added all the time, or do you just have to skip it?

Is there some sort of maybe blanket policy that can still be acquired if the track isn’t on the list of, let’s say approved venues? Yeah, so I would say we run into this on occasion. And it’s usually not a situation where it’s been an existing track and we just don’t have it on our list. We have every track that anyone could go to on our list.

For the most part, what usually happens is that it’s a new track that has just opened. And we didn’t know about it. Like Ozarks right, is brand new. So Ozarks is, uh, a great example. Ozarks is a track that someone reached out to us, let us know that it was not on our list, and we had it added to our covered track list within a matter of two [00:28:00] hours.

And essentially that’s what’s gonna happen is we’re gonna do a bit of research to understand why was it not on our list. Usually it’s going to be a situation where that is a new track. It’s a new track that’s just been created or built, and it’s just opening. We’ll do our due diligence to look at the track, look at their website, make sure it’s a road course that’s, you know, within our standards, and we’ll get it added to our system.

And that literally takes a matter of, uh, just a couple hours. So the big thing is always cost. And obviously with any of these, it’s on a sliding scale because like we said, the minimum’s 30 grand. Then you got the 150,000 and above cars. How does one determine or estimate what they’re gonna be paying when they buy, let’s say that single day policy, and is there a discount for buying the whole year?

So what are we looking at Costwise? Yeah, so cost wise, you know, it’s all very technical and so I won’t really be able to speak to cost per se. That can all be obtained when going through the quoting process on our website. A couple things I’ll say. One is, uh, [00:29:00] we offer on our daily policy, programer, our single event coverage we offer.

One to four consecutive days of coverage and where we might differ from our competitors is that our pricing is different for one day versus two days versus three versus four. Now it’s not quite double for the two day triple, for the three, quadruple for the four, it actually steps up less than that, so it actually becomes very competitive for the annual program.

It is a true annual program, 365 days a year. And that pricing is based upon really only a couple factors on both the daily and the annual. That pricing is based upon the vehicle value the vehicle make, and if on the daily product, the track that they’re going. That’s really the only three rating factors that we have.

When speaking about the annual unlimited program, we built that program for the more passionate drivers, right? Like I said earlier, that’s what we started out as. We started out as an annual only product. And it wasn’t until just a few years ago that we even added the [00:30:00] daily product, the annual program, uh, being for those most passionate drivers.

And those that are getting out to the track more frequently, it’s going to include the 365 days of continuous coverage. There’s no need for them to worry about purchasing except, but once per year, there’s unlimited track days with that product. There’s no requirement to notify us when or where they’re going as long as they are going to one of our covered tracks.

They have coverage, they don’t need to let us know. This provides them the freedom to enjoy that passion for tracking without the hassle of having to worry about their insurance every moment that they’re out there. Additionally, one of the benefits when I’m talking about the 120 plus tracks that they have access to, I mentioned it briefly, but it’s kind of a big one.

We do offer coverage for Canadian tracks that is only available in our annual program. We do not offer our daily policies for the Canadian tracks. There’s unlimited cars, and what I’ll say there is it’s not unlimited cars at no additional [00:31:00] cost. There is an additional cost, but it’s very competitive, so we will always rate for the highest valued vehicle that they own, that they want to put on that policy.

The highest value’s always gonna have. The primary rate, any second or subsequent vehicles that are of equal or lesser value would be just $150 each in premium for the year. Now additionally there I’ll say, is the vehicles all must have common ownership. It’s not like I can put my car on the policy and then my buddy or my brother can have his vehicle on the policy as well.

We’d have to have our own separate annual policies if we are intending on having coverage. We already went through earlier, the unlimited drivers. There’s no cap to the number of drivers. There’s no additional cost for adding drivers. Instructors are covered automatically while in the process of instruction.

And then we also went through the reduced deductible from the daily product down to the annual product from 10% down to 5% except for the McLarens and the greater than $300,000 value. So many of us are used [00:32:00] to our everyday driver policies, whether we have Geico or Liberty Mutual or Allstate, you know, all the commercials, these farmers DA and all that kind of thing.

But they all have these good driver incentive programs. Say you get through the entire season, especially with the unlimited plan that you’ve bought into, and you don’t have any claims, you don’t have any faults, you don’t have any actions. Is there any sort of kickback there or promotion or anything for being a good track driver in regard to good driver discounts?

We get that question. It does make sense on on your regular auto insurance. We price our products competitively for everyone. In current state, we do not offer any good driver credits. We offer our pricing as competitively as possible for everyone. Ultimately, if someone has a loss with us, we’re not going to penalize them either.

On that back end, what will happen is there is a lifetime, two losses. Before someone would become ineligible for our products. We kind of covered what the common types of incidents and claims might [00:33:00] be, and we never really wanna be in that situation. We always try to avoid that. That’s why we’re there to be at an H P D E is to get better as drivers, to be safer, to predict when things are gonna happen and potentially go wrong, but you know, things go wrong.

And if you’re going to submit a claim, that’s the part where we all kind of grown and go, oh man, what? Now? You know, how long am I gonna be on hold? Listen. Tomac, you know, that kind of thing. So let’s talk about how the claims process works at Open Track. So while I cannot disclose any specific claims data, what I can say is that claims certainly do happen, and with recent supply chain issues that we’re dealing with across the country, And across the world, understaffed shops and the overall price of repairs, increasing claims are only getting more expensive.

So the main driver of claims that we see is a driver’s simply making an error and their inability or failure to properly recover from that error regarding the claims process. Then once they’ve had a loss, once something [00:34:00] does occur, We have gotten great feedback from our clients who have gone through that, and while we do not enjoy our clients having to go through a claim situation, we do strive to provide a quick response and claim resolution so that they can get back to doing what they love, get back on track, enjoy their passion for driving as quickly as we possibly can get them there.

Different than your standard driving policy, you’re not really interfacing with the claims adjuster and things like that, or are you They would be, yeah. So our claims process is pretty simple. From their dashboard. Again, they can put in the claims information, submit a claim that then goes through our internal.

Review process and goes to a claims representative with the company, and that claims representative will then reach out to them within a 24 to 48 hour time period. While that’s happening, the vehicle owner can take their vehicle to any body shop that they would like. We don’t have recommended body shops.

We don’t tell them where they can and can’t go. They can take it anywhere they like. So that is their freedom [00:35:00] to use someone that they are familiar with, someone that might be familiar with their vehicle or that type of vehicle, and we get great feedback on that as well. And they’re also allowed to fix or repair it themselves.

Right? Yes. I know you said you couldn’t tell us about any specific claims data, but maybe you could talk about trends. Are there higher horsepower cars that are. Getting more claims than others. Any fun things that you’ve seen in the patterns over the last couple of years with respect to track insurance?

Unfortunately, I’m not able to comment on that. I think there’s some logical assumptions that could be made as to, you know, where those claims lie. Like I said earlier, Ferrari’s, we had to make a decision to adjust our product because of the loss experience that we were seeing. But I can’t get into it any further than that, unfortunately.

Understood. So let’s switch gears a little bit. There’s something very unique about Open Track in that you guys offer a program called Drive Better. So why don’t you tell us what that’s all about? Drive Better was launched in early 2021 and it’s really focused [00:36:00] on what resources can we offer to our membership.

That will help them become a better driver and that’ll be things such as free driver coaching from our on staff, professional driving coach. That is a once per year virtual coaching session with our on staff driving coach, and it would begin with that driver signing up for the session and then sending in if they have it, any driving data.

That they have from a data system in their vehicle that can be reviewed during that virtual session. They’ll go through that with the driving coach and get some feedback. Those sessions last about an hour to an hour and a half. Talking about their data is not the entire portion of that conversation.

There is a lot of time during that conversation for them to ask additional questions, get a bit more specific on some of the feedback that they’re being given a and other things. That’s probably the highlight of Drive better. But additionally, they would have access to webinars, try to at least do a monthly webinar, [00:37:00] and those range in topics from where should I be breaking in the corner?

Or we had one recently was, Hey, I’m interested in racing. What do I need to know before jumping into that space? Even though we don’t ensure racing, we don’t ensure any kind of competitive event, our drivers may be pursuing that as the next step in their evolution of driving their vehicle. So there’s access to those webinars.

There’s also access to track guides and protips. We’ve created those types of materials for about 20 to 30. Of the primary tracks across the country, and so they would have access to that. It gets very specific in, you know, the corners on each track and some of the other things that you’d want to know when you get there.

And then we have, all of those webinars that we’ve created are also on demand, so they don’t even have to. Attend the live webinar if they don’t want to. Of course we want them to. We want them to be able to enjoy that because it’s a different feeling when you’re there in person, but those are also available on demand from their [00:38:00] dashboard.

All of the benefits we offer with the annual unlimited program support our motto of helping people to drive more. Through unlimited insurance and drive better with awesome coaching content. Yeah. And if it helps sweeten the pot for our listeners, I mean the pro coach that you have on staff right now, some people may recognize from Trans Am IMSA and S R O World Challenge, we’re talking about Andy Lee.

I mean, he’s got over a hundred professional race starts, 24 podium finishes. I mean, he’s been doing this for forever and he is a great guy. And why not take the opportunity to expand your open track experience and get to work with Andy Lee one-on-one? I mean, what an amazing experience. Talk about a key differentiator between you and the competitors, and actually that’s kind of a great segue.

As petrol heads, we’re all very mechanical in some form or another, maybe more so than others, but that’s okay. But a lot of us come to the table and we like our popular mechanics charts, right? So if we’re gonna stack rank all the competitors out there, you know, there’s open track and there’s Haggerty, [00:39:00] and there’s Lockton, and there’s Goal Wing and there’s rli.

But without getting into all the specifics of who’s who in the zoo, let’s talk about just those key differentiators that makes Open Track stand out from all these other names. Like you said, while there are other track day insurance products in the marketplace, we at Open Track, we believe our products provide the best value, specifically our annual unlimited membership, where we’ve included many of the benefits that I’ve gone through today and access to those resources at no additional charge.

We want to empower our members to accelerate their skills, to be more safe and to get faster at the track. You know, when I’m talking about the daily product, Not much differentiation can take place in the marketplace Where we differentiate ourself in that product. One place specifically is that our product is not requiring that the event be sanctioned.

So it can be used for that general track time where you’re going out and it’s probably gonna be tied to a private track club or something like that, where they’re just going [00:40:00] out and they need coverage and they don’t have a sanctioned event. Makes sense. But ultimately, with any of our products, We are always focused on the driver.

We want to provide a product that they want and that they can use to improve their skills. So, Brett, as we wrap things up here, any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to share that we didn’t cover on this episode? One thing I would say is this. So we are always looking for feedback. We thrive on feedback.

The company was built. On feedback. It was built on talking to clients, talking to people out at tracks, and so if anyone has any information, anything they want to talk through, reach out. I would love to have a conversation. I’ll give you my number here in a minute, but I am always available to have a conversation with someone because I love talking about our products.

I really do because I believe that we have something to offer that no one else does. I think our products are immeasurable in how they compete and what they can provide [00:41:00] to our client base. As far as promotions, I’ll hit it really high level. We rolled out in December of 2021, a referral bonus program. So without getting into specifics on dollar amounts and things like that, anyone who is a member and I, I’m including daily policy purchasers and annual policy purchasers.

Any one of those members is eligible to participate in that program. And so once they’ve enrolled into or purchased one of our products, they can go to their dashboard and they can find more information about that program. So Brett, if people want to continue this conversation with you one-on-one, what’s the best way to get ahold of you?

I would say two ways. One, I’m happy to take an email. My email address is Brett, b r e t t dot Larson, l a r s o n, at open track.com. Would love an email, but emails aren’t always the greatest for having these types of conversations, so would love a phone call. Would love someone to reach out to me to talk through why they’re excited about tracking.

What type of vehicle they’re driving, what have they [00:42:00] put into their vehicle? What has their experience been and any feedback they wanna offer on, Hey, here’s something where I see you guys could really improve. We’d love that as well. So my phone number, if anyone wants to reach out, is 6 1 2 6 0 1. One zero three four, and either email or phone.

Happy to have a conversation. Track day insurance coverage for both your car and your actions. That’s what Open Track is all about and what Brett has been talking about here throughout this episode. Because your track day rush should come from your speed and not from your financial risk. So if you’ve been apprehensive about getting on track with your beloved vehicle, hop over to www.open track.com and like Brett, Said, get a free quote in minutes and make sure you’re covered before ever turning your first lap.

And if that’s not enough, you can also check out open track on social media at Open Track Drive on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And by the way, they’ve also [00:43:00] got a YouTube channel at Open Track. And you can also find open track on LinkedIn. So they’re just about everywhere, everywhere you need to be as well.

So Brett, I can’t thank you enough for coming on Break Fix and telling us all about Open Track, its offerings, and hopefully getting some people up off their couch and onto the track where they want to be. I appreciate the invite. Eric was happy to be here and I heard a statistic the other day that said that the track day market, the track day enthusiast, is gonna grow exponentially for the next five years.

People are going to find out about this. When they’re finding out about it. We want them to be aware. There are products available out there, there’s people they can talk to. We want to make sure that they’re protected as adequately as possible so they can enjoy their time and keep that hobby growing.

Absolutely. Thanks Brett. We’ll talk soon. Take it easy. Bye now.

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about [00:44:00] gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call our Texas at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that G T M remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig Newton’s, gummy bears, and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon [00:45:00] today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Bonus Content

Learn More

Track More!

This episode is sponsored in part by Hooked On Driving (HOD). HOD partners with OpenTrack and offers you extended coverage quickly and easily, as you register for your events. Concentrate on driving, not the “What If’s” – Get yourself and your car on track, on America’s best racetracks, with Hooked On Driving. 

So if you’ve been apprehensive about getting on track with your beloved vehicle, hop over to www.opentrack.com and get a free quote in minutes, and make sure you’re covered before ever turning your first lap! If that’s not enough, you can also check out OpenTrack on social @opentrackdrive on IG, FB and TW, and @opentrack on YT as well as linkedin. 

OpenTrack’s policies are designed for non-competitive track time at over 120 approved venues across the U.S. and Canada. Whether you’re attending an HPDE or enjoying a private club day, you’re covered – as long as it’s not wheel-to-wheel racing. Key coverage highlights include:

  • Vehicle Value: Policies start at $30,000 declared value, with coverage up to $500,000.
  • Deductibles: 10% for single-event policies, 5% for annual plans (with exceptions for McLarens and vehicles over $300K).
  • Driver Flexibility: Add unlimited drivers over age 25 at no extra cost. Instructors are automatically covered during coaching sessions.
  • Track-Only Vehicles: Non-registered cars like the Rush SR or GT2 RS are eligible.
  • Exclusions: No coverage for Ferraris or open-wheel formula cars due to loss ratios.

What’s Covered—and What’s Not

OpenTrack covers collision-related damage on the track surface. That includes fire damage only if it results from a collision – not mechanical failure. Coverage does not extend to the paddock, transit, or trailer incidents, though other products may fill those gaps. Liability coverage is optional but robust, offering $1M or $2M limits. It includes:

  • Damage to track property (walls, barriers, fluid cleanup)
  • Bodily injury to third parties
  • Legal defense—even if you’re not at fault

However, it does not cover injuries to the driver or passengers inside the insured vehicle. That’s where personal health or life insurance comes into play.

OpenTrack uses a stated amount policy, paying the lesser of repair cost or declared value. At claim time, receipts and documentation for upgrades are crucial. Clients can negotiate to retain salvage vehicles, depending on the situation.


Flexibility and Ease of Use

Policies can be purchased in minutes at OpenTrack.com. Drivers get access to a personalized dashboard to manage coverage, change dates, and tap into the “Drive Better” program, which includes coaching and webinars.

If an event is canceled, policies can be rescheduled or refunded with proof. Coverage is tied to the track and date – not the event organizer – making it easy to switch hosts.

OpenTrack is responsive to new venues. If a track isn’t listed, a quick inquiry can get it added – Ozarks International Raceway was onboarded within hours of a customer request.

OpenTrack isn’t just insurance – it’s peace of mind for those who live for the thrill of the track. By putting drivers first and listening to the community, they’ve built a product that’s as passionate as the people it protects.


This content has been brought to you in-part by sponsorship through...

Motoring Podcast Network

Lyn St. James: A Trailblazer’s Journey Through Motorsports

In the latest episode of the Break/Fix podcast, we had the honor of sitting down with Lyn St. James – a pioneering racer whose story defies convention and inspires generations. From humble beginnings as a secretary and piano teacher to becoming Rookie of the Year at the Indianapolis 500, Lyn’s journey is a testament to grit, passion, and the power of persistence.

Lyn didn’t come from a racing family. She came from a racing culture. Growing up in the muscle car era of the 1960s, she was surrounded by GTOs, Mustangs, Chargers, and Cougars. Her first taste of motorsports came as a spectator at the Indy 500, tagging along with the guys from the local gas station.

But it was sports – specifically field hockey at her all-girls school – that taught her how to stand her ground. “It was the most fearful moment of my life,” she recalls. “But it taught me how to work, how to compete.” That early exposure to competition laid the groundwork for her racing career.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Listen on Apple
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Listen on Spotify

Lyn’s first race car was a Ford Pinto, which also served as her daily driver. After installing a roll bar, five-point harness, and fire extinguisher, she took it to SCCA driver’s school. Her first race? A disaster. She lost control and drove the Pinto straight into a lake at Palm Beach International Raceway. “I had to flat tow it home, dry it out, and drive it to work,” she laughs. “Seaweed would come out of the vents to remind me of failure.” But instead of quitting, Lyn doubled down. Her husband told her, “Race car drivers aren’t born. It’s a trained skill.” That mantra fueled her determination.

Spotlight

Synopsis

This Break/Fix episode highlights the incredible journey of Lyn St. James in the world of motorsports. From her humble beginnings as a secretary and piano teacher to racing a Ford Pinto and eventually making a name for herself in prestigious races like the 24 Hours of Sebring and the Indy 500, where she earned the Rookie of the Year title. The discussion delves into her early influences, struggles with sexism, and the importance of persistence and passion. Lyn also shares insights about her transition from amateur to professional racing, mentoring young drivers, and her continuous efforts to promote and support women in motorsports, including her recent initiative with Women in Motorsports North America. The podcast reflects on her legacy and ongoing influence in the racing world.

  • Let’s talk about how you got into racing? What attracted you to it? Did you come from a racing family? What was your motivation? 
  • Rumor has it, you drove your Pinto it into a lake?
  • The progression to Trans-AM – this era in racing was some of the best there was. 53 SCCA Trans-AM races with six wins, 62 IMSA GT races, with 17 top-5 and 37 top-10 finishes. 
  • In 1989 (and 1991) you went to LeMans – describe what that was like. 
  • The Road to Indy 
    • How did you go from TransAm/IMSA to Indy?
    • You Finished 11th in the world’s most iconic race — and took home Rookie of the Year honors against a rookie class that featured Paul Tracy and Jimmy Vassar. Talk about the experience.
    • Notably, the first woman to ever win the Rookie title. 
    • You were the first woman to go over 200 mph (227.32 to be exact) Let’s repeat that. First women to reach over 200 mph, in any car. – full stop.  What was that like? 
  • After Indy – what came next?
    • Women in the Winner’s Circle Foundation
    • Lyn has written a few books, and is now a motivational speaker – what are some of the topics? 
    • Women in Motorsports North America

Transcript

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: For many of us, our stories begin with amateur racing in SCCA. And our guest is no exception. Full time secretary and piano teacher by day. By the age of 26, she moonlighted in racing behind the wheel of a Ford Pinto, which doubled as her daily driver quickly moving up the ranks.

She fought alongside names like Haywood, Schook, and Ribs in the TransAm and IMSA series. She would take home titles and races like the 24 hours of Sebring, 24 hours of Rolex, and the 24 hours of the Nuber ring in 1992. [00:01:00] The mold wasn’t just broken. It was shattered, and at the age of 45, proving that neither gender nor age matter in motorsports, she entered the Indianapolis 500, earning the title of Rookie of the Year.

And tonight, we are proud to welcome the one and only Lyn St. James to Break Fix.

Lyn St. James: Well, thank you very much. Nice intro. Nice intro. I was like, my, I wonder who that is.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, thank you. And co hosting with me tonight is Tanya from our drive thru series. So we’re going to be getting down to some really interesting questions and diving into your background.

So like all good Break Fix episodes, let’s start with an origin story. How did you go from being a secretary and a piano teacher to racing? What drew you to that? Did you come from a racing family? What was your motivation?

Lyn St. James: I mean, no, I was just a race fan. I mean, I grew up in the sixties and the muscle car era.

And so everybody around my age, we’re all are into cars, you know, I [00:02:00] mean, that was kind of the GTOs and the Mustangs and the Chargers and Cougars. I mean, it was just the muscle cars. That was the big deal. And so, and I went to the Indy 500 as a spectator. With the guys from the gas station, but I kind of lived, I don’t want to call it a double life, but I mean, I went to a girl’s school.

I got sports because of that. This was pre title 9 and just for educational purposes. So you all know that this year is the 50th anniversary of the passing of title 9, which was actual law went into place that if you receive any federal funding. which all schools received some type of federal funding that you could not discriminate.

And then it was added that you couldn’t discriminate for sports. And so that enabled girls to be able to have sports. And again, this is the 50th anniversary. So I went to high school prior to that, but because I went to a girl’s school, I got sports and I’m absolutely convinced not just because I got sports, but because the most fearful moment of my life was when I was the first time on a field hockey team.

And I didn’t even know what field hockey was. And I’m like standing there holding the stick and trying to [00:03:00] figure out what the heck I’m supposed to do. And then all of a sudden, you know, I see these kids running after me or towards me. And I realized, you know, I got to stand my ground and I got to work.

And this was what sports was all about. And I think that served me very well throughout my entire development, you know, seventh or 12th grade that then enabled me many years later to get behind the wheel of a Ford Pinto. But anyway, muscle car era went to Indy, did some drag racing with my buddies. It wasn’t the right thing to do, particularly for a young female.

I mean, My mom sent me to girl’s school to become educated and self sufficient and independent, not to be out driving race cars. But I got married. I helped my husband build a business. We went to the 24 hours of Daytona together. I was, yes, the secretary and the bookkeeper. And you know, when you’re the co owner of a business, you do whatever it takes.

She’s a bottle washer

Crew Chief Eric: too, right? Yeah.

Lyn St. James: Yeah. You know, whatever. I mean, you sweep the floors, you, you know, do whatever, wash the windows. And so that’s what we were doing is we built the business. We went to the races in Florida, cause that’s where I was living then. [00:04:00] And I saw Daytona, the 24 hours of Daytona.

I saw the 12 hours of Sebring. To me, it was like all of a sudden I saw real people drive race cars and not super humans like at the Indianapolis 500. And so we became a members of sports car club of America. And found out that you had to go to driver’s school to get your competition license. Went out and bought a Ford Pinto, put a roll bar in it, a five point seat belt, a five pound fire extinguisher, which was required for all race cars and not just Pintos, if you know the story of the Pinto.

And it was my street car that I drove back and forth to work and then I went to driver’s school and it was my competition car in the beginning. The piano teacher thing, people pick up on that sometimes. That only lasted for six weeks and I got fired. And it’s a good thing to learn what you’re not good at.

That was what I was not good at was teaching piano. So I’m not a good teacher actually at anything because I’m very intense. You have to have a lot of patience as a teacher and I’m not that type of person, but anyway, kind of evolved over [00:05:00] time. You know, I didn’t come from the kind of family, but I came from a culture.

That made it acceptable and made it popular at the time that it was popular. So even though there weren’t a lot of females doing it, I was hanging out with the guys and it just, it was okay. You know, it was just okay to do it. And they let me behind the wheel and I was good. I was a good driver. I like to go fast.

Crew Chief Eric: If you read all the trade magazines and interviews you’ve done over the years, and you mentioned it yourself, the Pinto, right? It’s always listed there, but a little birdie told me that you actually drove that Pinto into a lake.

Lyn St. James: Yes, that’s true. My very first race after driver’s school, you know, they, they had good driver’s school and then usually the second school, there’s actually a regional race that same weekend.

So I got to enter that race. And of course I had a big X on my car. Cause as a rookie, you have to put an X next to your car number so that everybody knows to stay away from you. I lost control of the car as the car was passing me. You know, this was in South Florida. It was at. Palm beach international raceway, which just closed [00:06:00] literally.

They finally officially announced that the track is closed and they’re going to turn it into, I guess, to some housing development or something. But that was where I first started racing. And there was a lot of water down there. Turn two, three, and four went around what we thought was a pond. And I found out actually it’s pretty deep.

And so the car totally submerged. And it was my street car. So I had to flat tow at home, dry it out and, you know, drive it to work. Ran just

Executive Producer Tania: fine.

Lyn St. James: Well, it was not that easy. We had to really clean it out. I remember putting the motor for the windshield washers and the windshield wipers in the oven, and I think 150 degrees to get it to dry out and, you know, but it, yeah, it, it ran, I mean, uh, you know, we.

took spark plugs out and water came out, but you know, it was nasty. It was nasty though, because I ordered the car without air conditioning and I lived in South Florida. And so I would turn the fan on, try to get a little bit of air movement when I would be driving this thing to work and seaweed would come out of the vents, you know, to remind me of failure.

And you learn a lot more from [00:07:00] failure than you do from success. And in racing. You will have a lot more failure than you will have success. And it tests your dictativeness. It tests your fortitude of how bad do you really want to do this? And that was, to be honest, I could have easily given up after that first race because I was so embarrassed.

And I realized maybe this isn’t what I was meant to do. Maybe I’m not as good at this as. I think I am, you know, my husband at the time and is a really good guy. And he said, Lenny said, race car drivers aren’t born. It’s a trained skill. And he said, it’s just how hard are you willing to work? So that kind of was a good way for me to start to realize that I better know how badly I really want to do this because it’s going to be a lot of work, not all fun and games.

It’s not just, Oh, get a race suit and get a helmet, get all your gear and then get your car ready. And you get on the track. I mean, that’s just. There’s so much more to it.

Crew Chief Eric: Some of our previous guests, who you’re also friends with, happen to mention some other little tidbits about your past. So, you know, you’ve always really been associated with [00:08:00] Ford in a lot of ways.

When you look over your history and your driver’s resume, from the Pinto to the Mustang, to other cars and whatnot. And Dean Case mentioned making you part of the Ford Motorsports Enthusiast Group that he was a part of and helped start at Ford Motor Company.

Lyn St. James: Dean Case has a better memory than most of us.

You know, he remembers stuff that I look at. Look at him sometimes. I’m like, what? And he’s usually right. So unfortunately you don’t debate with Dean. You just sort of, sometimes you have to remember that he remembers stuff you don’t remember. When I got Ford as a sponsor, and I mean, I’m going to just fast forward a bit.

That was not Ford’s idea. I worked hard for three years, bugging the hell out of them. I’m absolutely convinced they hired me because they said that’s the only way we’re going to get control of this gal is because she’s going to keep bugging us unless we do. And then I told them the Pinto story. And to be honest, you know, they were not proud of that car.

They were like, could you leave that out of your story? I said, Hey, I’m telling you it’s there, you know, and it’s documented. And then not only that, it gets a lot of laughs. So, you know, it’s kind of like, it’s a great conversation piece. So there was no connection, the [00:09:00] Pinto to Ford, other than it’s the truth, you know, and that’s it, but they were not happy about that when I got forward as a sponsor in 1981, after literally three years of bugging him and they had announced special vehicle operations.

So they were really just getting back into racing after being out of it for the seventies. They were still formulating how they were going to do this. And so somewhere along the way, with the help of Dean created some Ford enthusiast program that they would ask me to make appearances and go to things, which at the time I’m like.

What? I gotta do what? All I wanted to do is drive the race car. I learned that they had other objectives that I needed to learn about and I needed to support. And I use that a lot with my training with young drivers or any driver trying to get sponsors. I say it’s not about what you want. It’s not about what you need.

You have to figure out how to satisfy them. What do they need that you can do while, by the way, you need their sponsorship so you can go racing. So it was a really [00:10:00] great learning experience for me to fulfill what Ford’s. You know, objectives were with why they were sponsoring me. And also along the way, I learned so much about how cars get built and used to go to the test track.

And I got to test drive a lot of cars. I used to, I worked with their engineers. I went to the design center. I went to factories. I got to see how car, you know, I mean, the whole thing was amazing and a huge learning experience about how the industry really works.

Crew Chief Eric: So we’re going to close the loop on this Pinto story because it does bring us into the modern times as well.

And Jim Jordan, who was also on the show, mentioned that he shared a Pinto with you in a 24 hour race where there were 25 different drivers. He says, we raced together, but not together, but using the same car.

Lyn St. James: Well, it wasn’t at a Pinto, it was at a Mazda. It was with Mazda. Yes. And so it was the 25 hours of Thunder Hill and it was so much fun.

I mean, I was all excited. I’m doing another endurance race. And then I, I show up and, and I’m like, so when’s my stint? And they’re like, well, [00:11:00] that’s not until tomorrow. Like what? And then I put my suit on and I did my stint. And then I’m like, what’s my next shift? No, you only get one. Like you’re kidding. So it was a fun, but weird experience to have 25 drivers.

And one race car in one race, you know, everybody only gets one stint. It’s like you just get warmed up, you know,

Crew Chief Eric: Lyn, let’s go back to the timeline here a little bit. You moved away from, let’s say, amateur racing SCCA up into trans and more into the program side of the world. How did that transition occur?

And just to remind our listeners, this was the. Era in racing where there was some of the best there was, you know, some of those names that we listed in the intro is just a very, very short list of very famous people in that list to include yourself. Let me just add some stats to this to level set.

Everybody does this and you had 53 SCCA Trans Am races, 6 wins, 62 IMSA GT races in this time period, 17 top 5 and 37 [00:12:00] top 10 finishes. Just to kind of round out that era. How did you get there and what was it like?

Lyn St. James: I had been racing SCCA, my husband had a Corvette, so I got to run a Corvette a couple times in IMSA in the Camel GT series.

So I got to drive a high horsepower big car. In 1981, actually before that, the Kelly company, Kelly Services, which used to be called Kelly Girl, they sponsored a series in IMSA. called the Kelly American Challenge. That’s when I showed up on the scene in the IMSA series. I was actually quite successful that first season.

Then I kind of scrounged around getting rides in various endurance races. Then I got Ford as a sponsor in 1981 in the Kelly American Challenge series. And Ford chose to start out with a Mercury Capri. That first year that that was the first one, which is essentially a Mustang, but with a Capri body on it, I did that for two seasons.

This is when I learned that Ford was going to decide where I was going to race. Not [00:13:00] me. And then that’s when they said, okay, we’re going to put you with Tom Gloy and you’re going to run in the, which was at the time SCCA Trans Am series. That was my first season in Trans Am. A completely different experience, completely competitive, meaning the top drivers, one hour races, no pit stops.

It’s not like endurance racing. I mean, an SCCA, they were all 30 minute races, very short, no refueling. I mean, no pit stops. You just, you know, go to your thing. Then you get into IMSA and now you’re running these endurance races where there’s multiple drivers, longer stints. You had to learn how to make pit stops, refuel.

I mean, the whole thing, which was great experience. And the other thing is that I really learned how to qualify because there they had very short qualifying sessions where in endurance racing they have, you have to have a long enough session that all three drivers or all four drivers get to actually get a qualifying time.

There was just a lot of learning to do. And that’s essentially every season after that, whether it was Trans Am or in the IMSA Camel GT series, Ford decided what team I was going to [00:14:00] be on, what series I was going to race. I was blessed. These were all one year contracts. I was never on a long term contract.

So I was always fearful in negotiating that next contract and then trying to figure out where the heck I was going to race. But loving the 24 hours of Daytona and the 12 hours of Seabrook, I was always hoping that I would get to at least be in those two races because I really do love endurance racing.

And of course, because I lived in Florida and I went to the IMSA races, I saw drivers like Hurley Haywood and Peter Gregg and Hans Stuck and Jim Busby, Al Holbert, and you know, all of these world class drivers. And I mean, the dream was one day to be on the racetrack at the same time with those drivers.

But when I wasn’t on the racetrack, I was watching them because that’s how I would learn. I would watch their lap times. I would go and observe in their paddock area, how they handled and managed their team and how they set their garage up. How do you learn all this stuff? I even read a lot of books about it.

But you will learn most by watching and observing. It’s like going [00:15:00] to class, you know, you, you get to go to the paddock and watch how the pros do it. And not just any pro, but how the best, you know, I always watch to see who was the best and that’s who I would pay attention to that way they do things.

Peter Gregg, invariably, every time there was a practice session or a qualifying session, his car was the first in line to go out. I mean, he was ready. That makes a statement. If you’re still trying to get your car together when qualifying starts, which you see a lot of people that way, I mean, they’re still thrashing, trying to get their car on the pit lane to even go out or get them in their own pit.

Peter was always First car in line, it’s just something that I remembered, you know, so you always got to be ready

Crew Chief Eric: amongst all the drivers in the paddock, who would you say were your closest friends at that time? And maybe who are your biggest rivals?

Lyn St. James: Well, they were all rivals. One of the ones that was, I felt like we were buddies with Doc Bundy, which of course, then a few years later, he did a very bad thing at Riverside and caused a horrible crash.

I got along with everybody. I [00:16:00] got along with just about everybody. Wally Dullenbeck Jr. We had a good time together. You know, I mean, he was a kid. I was old enough to be their mothers in some cases. I mean, seriously, I was definitely a little aged out compared to them, but I got along with most of them. I mean, seriously, Scott Pruitt was great.

Tom Gloy and I, you know, but we became much more friendly when we were no longer teammates, or we were no longer competitors at the same time.

Crew Chief Eric: When you were going through this, were you being coached or were you learning by the seat of your pants, by lead follow or driving by feel? This is still the era where data wasn’t nearly as prevalent as it is today for drivers.

Lyn St. James: We had no data except for our butts and our fingers, you know, on the steering wheel and our brains. We didn’t have coaches back then. We didn’t have driver coaches like they do now. So, and we didn’t have spotters. You were on your own out there. I literally would pick the brains of drivers as much as I could, my competitors and my teammates.

And I can tell you one person that was hugely, hugely [00:17:00] impactful on me was Bob Riley. Bob was a car builder, an engineer, he’s a chassis expert, he was hired by Ford on occasion, you know, sometimes he was working for Chevy and sometimes he was working for Ford, but if he was at the track, I would find him and pick his brain and start talking about.

The, what the car was doing and what I was feeling. And then sure enough, I’d find out that he was out on the track, watching corners. He wouldn’t tell me that automatically. I would eventually, you know, we’d come out in our conversation, but he taught me a lot by asking me the right kind of questions about what I was feeling in the car, and I have to learn how to communicate.

So that an engineer in this case, Bob Riley and any engineer could understand what I was talking about, but it was learn as you go. You know, I was like a sponge. I was absorbing information like crazy. I mean, I remember one time I saw a picture. Actually, I came across just a little snapshot. Jim Busby was somebody that I just, I was like, Oh my God, the guy is so good.

And I was on pit lane in Pocono and I was really frustrated. The car is a piece of junk and I was [00:18:00] trying to figure out what was wrong and you know, yada, yada. And so I saw Jim and I walked up to him and I said, Jim, hi, I’m Lyn St. James, which means nothing to him. But anyway, I said, if you’ve got a couple of minutes, he goes, yeah, what do you need?

And I said, can we just walk on pit lane, walk down pit lane? And will you point out features? Of every race car that we’re going to walk past and tell me why that car is good or why it’s not good just by visually looking at it and I learned more in that 10 minute walk that I learned in the whole season because of learning about where the center of gravity was, where the driver’s seat was, where the wheelbase was, look at the aerodynamics, look at the ride heights.

It was like a walking encyclopedia experience.

Executive Producer Tania: You were doing competition, so it’s race day. What are you doing in between race day to practice? Were you doing any and every track event that you could possibly find? Or were you the seat of your pants every time and you’re absorbing and you’re learning, you’re trying new things race day?

Lyn St. James: We had no simulators back then either, dear. So we’d get track maps, wonderful [00:19:00] track maps. I would always try to get in a day early. You know, usually it was a Friday, Saturday, Sunday schedule. I would make sure that I got there on Thursday and I would walk the track or I would beg whoever was the track owner or the track promoter or the track maintenance person, can I take my rental car around?

I promise I’ll go really slow. I tried to at least do that on the new tracks that I’d never been to. And that was in the beginning in those early eighties, you know, I hadn’t been to any of them. I get previous years programs because a lot of times you would have a race program and there would be a driver like, you know, Jim Busby or Derrick Bell, who would describe the track and so I’d read their track descriptions to try to learn the track.

It was definitely I mean, you had practice qualifying. I mean, you had sessions, right? But hopefully by race day, you had it pretty well figured out. You were on your own. You were on your own. All of the infrastructure, which I, I admire. I mean, I used to get frustrated because I’m like, as I got to know other athletes, you know, I, I’d meet other tennis players and [00:20:00] swimmers and golfers.

They all had coaches. They all had trainers. We didn’t have any of that stuff. I’m like, that’s one of the reasons why I started my driver development program in 1994, is it’s like every race car drivers on their own. Today the world is different, but back then, even in the nineties, it wasn’t. And so I said, well, you know, you have to get better.

You have to learn new things. You have to get new information,

Executive Producer Tania: and you need that seat time. And using your example, if you got access to a swimming pool, you can go every day and practice for hours. But it’s really hard to have a racetrack in your backyard.

Lyn St. James: You used to drive me crazy because of that. You know, I mean, I played tennis, you know, locally just for fun, but it was still competitively and, you know, you go out and drill and practice and get ready for a tournament and in racing, I mean, it was just.

You know, you prayed that you might get a test day the day before the race weekend, you know, because obviously track conditions change, weather changes, you know, so if you go at the different time of the year, it doesn’t help you much usually, but it’s a very frustrating sport even today because the cost, I mean, even though [00:21:00] simulators help tremendously, if you could get into them and.

Know how to work them, but no, that’s true. Yeah. I mean, seriously, you’re right, Tanya. I mean, it’s a very difficult sport, which is what I also tell up and coming racers that maybe race go karts or quarter midgets or legends cars or mini sprints or all the different. And now they have these great ideas about what they want to do.

It’s tough. It’s really, really tough. You know, the, the gender thing is. First of all, it’s the one thing you aren’t going to, I shouldn’t say that, but that you aren’t going to change. And so you have to focus on the things you can change. And if you don’t have the funding or you don’t have the capability, if you have a full time job and you don’t have the chance to go, even if you had the money, you can’t go test, you know, you can’t go do a test day.

And these track days and all those wonderful things that are available now, they just, they’re just, it’s just hard. It’s just a hard sport, but it’s so rewarding. That’s why when you get a good lap, Just a good fricking lap. You are like [00:22:00] elated, you know, and you know, you put a bunch of laps together or you get a good qualifying and then you actually get it about the time you’re about ready to give up.

You get a good race result and you’re back in again. You got hooked again. They

Crew Chief Eric: often draw that parallel with. Playing golf, you know, 17 terrible holes. And then you have that one good one. That’s what keeps you coming back.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. We’re going to circle back on a couple of things you just hit on there, but obviously you’ve hit lots of different tracks.

What is your favorite or least favorite, or is there a track you haven’t been able to go to that you wish you will one day?

Lyn St. James: Hmm. That’s an interesting question, actually. The last part there, because I don’t, I mean, I’ve been to Austin, but I haven’t been on the track to race it, even though I got a hot lap around it with in one of the Skip Barber cars.

And I’m like, where the hell am I? I mean, it was like, the corners are also similar, you know, visually. Been on that track. Have you? Yeah. And I mean, I was like, God, I think I’d have a hard time just figuring out where I am, you know? Well, my favorite road course is Watkins Glen. I mean, that is completely, and they’re [00:23:00] running it.

You know, and I’m so soon, I just love that track, the flow. And of course this was before they put the chicane in and it’s still the flow of that track, the rhythm, just love it. I absolutely love it. The hardest track that I never felt, right. I never, ever felt like I got the right lap. Not one damn good lap was a serious point.

You know, Sonoma. It’s just so hard. The off camera, the elevations of blind corners that, you know, it just about the time you think you got one corner, right, you’re into that next corner. And then you’re like. Screwed up. I never felt right there. Other than that, I mean, I got to run Nürburgring. I got to run, you know, Le Mans.

Yeah, I have gotten some really, really great, you know, great racetracks that I’ve been able to be at and Daytona. So anyway, I don’t really have one out there that I’ve got. Oh God, I wish. I could still do that. I mean, the only thing I have left that I, that I really want to do, but I don’t know if it’s going to be in the cards is to set a record of Bonneville.

I got to run Bonneville once in 2017 and it is, it is not easy. It’s like, Oh, what’s the big deal? It’s just going straight now. It’s rougher than, I mean, [00:24:00] it’s like really, really rough and rugged. I mean, you’re bouncing around. And so the car is bouncing around and your eyes are very hard to visually have a perspective of where you are.

And the bouncing is it’s brutal. It’s actually brutal.

Crew Chief Eric: So I want to stitch together a couple of things before we transition again through the chronology here. And it has to do with, it has to do with Watkins Glen as a matter of fact. And as I look back on this time with very fondly, because it was in my formative years between IMSA Trans Am and Group B, that’s where I fell in love with motor racing, right?

And they’re still my top two things. And some of those drivers transitioned between the two in that era. So my question is this. I remember Hans Stuck in the rain in the Audi’s at Watkins Glen. We look back on that and you see the old videos and this and that, and you know, they talk about the unfair advantage and you put it in today’s perspective, it’s probably on par with the drama drive to survive and all these wonderful shows that people watch.

Was it really like that when you guys were competing against the Audi’s? [00:25:00] Was everybody so upset about it? Was it really that earth shattering?

Lyn St. James: It’s awful. You would be hanging under your car in a corner. And then they just go driving by, you know, cause you got that all wheel drive and it would be like, you would just cuss the hell out of everything.

I mean, I could have killed Hurley and stuck, you know, because it was like, Oh, I can remember metal lands particularly because you know, when you get in these temporary circuits and, and so it was maddening, it was totally, it was, it was brutal and maddening because it was an unfair advantage. I mean, it completely, I mean, there’s turbos and there’s normally aspirated that are racing against each other.

They have different power bands. But you know that all eventually it evens out and there are certain tracks that are handling tracks, certain tracks that are more high speed tracks if you have a handling car versus, you know, one versus the other. But it eventually evens out when they had that all-wheel drive bullshit.

I mean, that was like, that was never gonna even out. There’s no balance

Crew Chief Eric: of performance there, right?

Lyn St. James: No. Oh, of course now, yeah. I mean there’s the, that, that’s a whole different thing the way the rules are. I mean, God, [00:26:00] I’d hate to have to run a team right now because every week they change the b o P, you know, Yeah, back then you were stuck, you know, you were stuck with what you got, the way the roles were.

They didn’t change the roles that much throughout the year. And if they did, it was usually to your disadvantage. But that whole Audi all wheel drive thing was, it makes me just live in thinking about it again, because. We struggled so hard. God, it was awful

Crew Chief Eric: to add a little levity to that. I will never forget the summit point race.

It was just before they got banned. And I believe Hans was pretty upset because people started blocking. They put their elbows out. They’re like, we’re tired of this. So he starts passing people in the grass.

Lyn St. James: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: come on, man.

Lyn St. James: Well, you know, it’s like I got to race. This is not maybe a good analogy, but it makes me think of it.

We just said that because I got to drive for the first time and race a prewar. You know, what is this like 1912 national? And I remember learning. You know, how to do the clutch. And I mean, we were driving and it was at Sears point or, you know, Sonoma. So we’re driving [00:27:00] on the hill there. Try it. I’m trying to learn to drive this thing, you know, and I just remember the guy that owns it, Brian Blaine said, he said, don’t worry about it.

If you go off course though, he said, don’t try to correct and come back on. He said, just ride it out. It’s nothing more than a tractor. So, you know, It’s like if you go off course and one of those all wheel drive, that’s, you know, it doesn’t really matter because it’s really just, it’ll drive on, it’ll, those wheels will get traction anywhere, you know, even if it’s off of the grass,

Executive Producer Tania: just stay out a little longer, do some landscaping for us.

Lyn St. James: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. But, uh, jumping back into the chronology. Uh, so in 1991, fast forward a little bit. So you went to the mall,

Lyn St. James: but see, I went to Lamont 89 and that was. At that time of my career, that was the highlight of my career. I mean, to get to go to Le Mans and it was, I didn’t know that they were going to completely rebuild it right after that.

So in other words, where they put a chicane on the Mulsanne straight and they built these new garages and they built this new structure and, you know, everything changed in 91. But at 89, [00:28:00] I got to run with Gordon Spice and Ray Bellum in a Cosworth Spice chassis. And it was the old track and the old pits.

And, you know, I felt like I was in the movie, you know, Le Mans, because it was just the way it was in the movie. We ran 16 hours. I got to get a lot of seat time. It was perfection other than we didn’t finish. And I loved it. I mean, I loved it. The 91 was pretty awful to be honest. It’s not one that I, I, I don’t like to even talk about it because it was just

Executive Producer Tania: this time it was an all female team.

Lyn St. James: Yeah. And I mean, there was nothing wrong with the all field. Desiree was fabulous by the way. I think she’s one of the most talented male or female race car drivers that I’ve ever met, but that was what Desiree and Kathy Mueller. But it was the, the car was a piece of shit, clearly. I mean, and the team was lost.

It was a Japanese team. They were clueless. The car was not set up at all. It was not prepared to run a race period, yet alone the 24 hours of Le Mans. You know, the two gals, I mean, we were, we were great, but the car was just.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, because I saw that ended in a very short number of [00:29:00] laps.

Lyn St. James: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I didn’t even get suited up.

I wasn’t gonna, I mean, it was not worth it. But Des was absolutely relentless. She was convinced she was going to get that car to work. I mean, the brake pedal fell off. I didn’t lose the brakes. The brake pedal fell off going down after the at the, at the end of the Mulsanne straight. Oh, God, it’s just makes me

Executive Producer Tania: so they wouldn’t have been, you know, the first ones out on a qualifying session in a different race.

Lyn St. James: I mean, it makes my blood boil just thinking about it, you know, it really does. So anyway, but I was glad to go back because it made me appreciate 89 even more, you know, but it was very pristine and clinical and kind of, I don’t know, it was very much different.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you look forward to next year’s 100th anniversary of Le Mans?

Lyn St. James: Well, I do. I look forward to celebrating it this year because we’re going to celebrate it at Monterey Historics and we’re going to celebrate it at the Pebble Beach Concourse. I’m excited to be. There to help celebrate, you know, to be part of the celebration in any way, shape or form, and [00:30:00] to see all the cars.

I wish my spice could be there, but it’s not. Yeah. The next year being the hundredth anniversary is very, very exciting. I remember the hundredth anniversary of the Indianapolis 500, and that was a huge deal, you know, and they actually had, I think three or four. They had the hundredth anniversary of the building of the track in 2019.

Then they had the hundredth anniversary of the first running of the 500. And then they had the hundredth running because of obviously those years that we had a number of different hundredth anniversaries and Indies. And I think Lamar will have another one too, because this was their 90th running, I believe.

So another 10 years, there’ll be another hundredth. So it’s kind of cool to be a part of something or to be around when something is being celebrated.

Crew Chief Eric: I think that’s a perfect segue into our next set of questions because you are part of the Indy 500 history. You’re part of those hundred years. So how do you go from Trans Am and IMSA into Indy?

What inspired you to go there? There’s a lot of congratulations around what happened, [00:31:00] but I haven’t seen too much of What was the road to get there? What got you there? Did you look to somebody like Janet Guthrie, who was the previous woman to run the 500 as your inspiration, or was it something else that drove you to Indy?

Lyn St. James: No, I mean, I, I remember watching Janet, but you know, I was racing in, in SCCA back then. I hope so. And I just remember I was real happy doing what I was doing and she didn’t look like she was having a really good time to be honest. And they didn’t want her there. I mean, there was the coverage I saw. I mean, I’m having a great time, you know, I got a lot of friends.

I look forward to seeing my friends when I go to the races, you know, and, and that was not her experience at Indy. So that was not a, That didn’t leave a really good, you know, positive image in my mind, you know, after doing Daytona and winning at the 24 hours and winning at Sebring. And then I started doing the TV coverage at IndyCar because I was done Trans Am.

And we were the same weekend. Often I was actually working for ESPN and ABC and doing that. And I, so I got to hang out a lot with the IndyCar teams and the cars. I became just [00:32:00] mesmerized with those cars. I mean, when you get up close, it’s one thing to watch them, you know, when they’re going 190, 200 plus miles an hour going by.

But when you’re in the pits where they make pit stops, you know, I was a pit reporter. And when you’re in the garage and you’re around them, you know, the sophistication level back, back in the eighties. And I thought, you know, I just want to drive an Indy car. I mean, I’m a race car driver, prototypes and the cars that I’m racing are pretty cool.

But, you know, this is a lot cooler. And so I just want to drive an Indy car. I mean, seriously, that was it

Executive Producer Tania: want to go fast.

Lyn St. James: I want to drive an Indy car. I want to know what it’s like to drive what I’m going to call a perfect race car. And so I spent probably two years talking to team owners. Can I just, when you guys are testing sometime, you know, it doesn’t work that way.

Leave the keys in it. Just turn around. Exactly. It doesn’t work that way. And so, you know, doing a test, they like big money to do that, you know, I mean, for a [00:33:00] driver to do an IndyCar test. is expensive. So it was really like, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, but I really kept. And so finally I ended up talking to Dick Simon.

I talked to him a lot. I would talk to him almost every race, you know, and they may, Hey Dick. And, you know, this is a fairly long story, but it’s the truth. I was doing TV coverage at Tamiyami, which was the last race of the season. And it was actually the race where Al senior beat Al junior to win. You know, the championship was a very big deal.

I also owned an auto parts. Shock absorber business. And I remember Sunday night getting back to my office down in South Florida and the phone rang and it was Dick. He said, Hey kid, you said you wanted to drive an IndyCar be at Memphis tomorrow. And that was about the end of that conversation. I’m like, what, what, what, what, what?

I didn’t even know there was a racetrack in Memphis. I’ll see you tomorrow. He hangs up. I get an airplane ticket. I go to Memphis. I rent a car. I find this damn racetrack that I didn’t know existed, which is basically it’s a drag strip with a little return route and the IndyCars test there sometimes. He was on the way back to the shop at [00:34:00] Indy.

He had a rookie test scheduled, but he also had Rolls cars and other cars on the trailer that he’d brought into Miami. And he also, I found out later, he had miles left on his Cosworth because you had to. Send them back to Cosworth to get rebuilt after so many miles. Well, he had miles left on that engine, so it wasn’t going to cost him anything.

He gave me that chance. And so I showed up, he’s like, hi, how you doing? And then I had my race suit and everything, but we weren’t going to pour a seat or anything, so now we’re trying to get me fitted in the car. You know, we’re using rags and jackets and, you know, anything we could get a hold of to try to get me fitted in the car, the kid working on the car could have had that day off.

If I hadn’t been there as the test, he was in charge of that car, but that car wasn’t supposed to do anything except Dick said he, he let me have some laps. So, while we’re getting fitted in the car, I’m thinking to myself, you know, this is such a cool opportunity, but I could get the feeling that this guy was like, not necessarily excited about having to work that day, but then he says to me, Hey, he [00:35:00] said, were you ever at Snedderton?

I was at Snedderton. One day, about four years prior, when I tested the Argo GTP car, and I went, yeah, yeah. He said, I was there that day. He said, you ran good. So magic, in my opinion, this kid knew me, knew that I was at least a decent race car driver, maybe a good race car driver. And so he was in the game that day.

He could have made my life miserable, but instead he worked with me. All day. And Dick told him, he said, put 10 gallons of fuel in, let her run 10 laps and then bring her in and just keep doing that. And then Dick left, he had meetings or something and he left. I, I started out, I’m sure horrible, but I mean, I got to run almost the whole day.

I would do 10 laps and I would come in and he’d put fuel in, I’d go back out and do 10 laps. ’cause that way it didn’t change the weight of the car. In other words, the car was pretty stable. And Dick came back and when he came back, By then I was actually running pretty decent. When I got out of the car, Dick said to me, we can do this.[00:36:00]

He didn’t say you can do this. He said, we can do this. And I’m like, what? And so that was what changed from, I want to drive an IndyCar to, oh my God, I got a team owner who’s willing to give me a shot at this. It was in 1988. And that’s when I started the whole mission of trying to race an IndyCar. God knows I did not want to start at the Indy 500, but when I was pitching sponsorships, that was the only race that anybody wanted to talk about was the Indy 500.

I was in. I felt so good in the car. It’s the first time I didn’t have to wrestle with a car to get it around the track. I mean, hell, I stopped. I mean, I put the foot on the brake and the car stops. I literally, the first time I had to drive, the car came to a stop on the straightaway because I was so used to the Trans Am cars and the heavy cars that, you know, you, you have to break back there to get the car slowed down up there.

And instead I break back there and then the car came to a stop. I’m like, holy shit, I have to put it in first gear and drive back down to the corner. But it was beautiful. I mean, I felt so one with the car and it was just great. And not only that. At the end of the day, [00:37:00] after we got all done and Dick said that, he said, Hey, come on, join us for dinner.

He took the whole team to dinner. It was just the family atmosphere. When you run with Dick Simon, you were just part of the family. That was something that I kind of didn’t have with some of my other racing experiences that I remembered that I did have when I was running SCCA. It was like, there was just a family spirit with Dick that connected with me and.

We’re friends to this day. I mean, he and Diane are just wonderful people and there’s so many people on pit lane, not so much now, but for many, many years that at one time or other, there’s almost every crew guy working in IndyCar at one time or the other worked for Dick Simon, you know, I mean, he kind of.

He was just a super, super team owner and a super guy.

Crew Chief Eric: So catching everybody up, this road to Indy took four years. And in 1992, you got your chance on the big stage. You finished 11th in the world’s most iconic race. I’ve watched this on TV as a kid. It was absolutely just amazing. And you took home the Rookie of the Year honors against a rookie class that featured [00:38:00] both Paul Tracy and Jimmy Vassar.

And notably you were the first woman to ever win the rookie of the year title. So what was it like being on track now that you’ve built up to it? Big day comes you’re out there.

Lyn St. James: First of all, Dick also was very smart. He took me to Texas, the old Texas track before we got to Indy for rookie orientation to teach me how to go flat on an oval.

Because it is instinctive that when you are going to turn the steering wheel, that your right foot comes off the gas. I mean, it’s just instinct, you know, turn the wheel, lift, and then go back. Well, you can’t do that. Ultimately at Indy, you’ve got to be able to be comfortable. And there was no media, there were nobody else there.

It was just, so it was this real comfort level that he prepared me for. So that when we got to Indy, at least I had that under my belt. I mean, the Indianapolis 500 was my second open wheel race. And my first oval track race, I mean, I don’t recommend that for anybody. I did every lap available in the pace car that we could have had before we even got in the race [00:39:00] cars.

And I had dick simon again as he was a great teacher. He had that ability because he was a former driver himself that he could tell me what I needed to know when I needed to know it. We took it nice and slow, you know, and that was when you had the whole month. I mean, that was when the whole month was available to you.

I thought I died and gone to heaven. I mean, I, I looked at every day is like Christmas, you know, and I would show up at the track, even if we weren’t running, I was there every day. And I just felt this is like, it’s like Christmas. I mean, it was just. An amazing experience. I never, ever, ever expected to get Rookie of the Year.

I didn’t even know they had such a thing until we got this packet for all the rookies and then, you know, told us there’s a Rookie of the Year. There’s a past history of who all the former rookies. I never paid any attention to that. Until then, and then when I saw all the rookies that were there, we had 9 rookies that year.

I think it was a very big rookie year. I was like, there ain’t no way just forget that. So I really never expected that. I’m proud of it. I was [00:40:00] really proud that I actually held the record until this year as being the oldest rookie in the history of the Indianapolis 500 and the oldest rookie of the year.

But good old buddy, Jimmy Johnson decided to take that record away from me this year. So he was, I told him that when I saw him at Daytona at the 24, I said, well, I got to tell you I’m cheering you on. But meanwhile, I’m kind of pissed off because you’re also taking my record. I know you’re going to get rookie of the year unless you crash and you aren’t going to crash.

You’re too smart for that anyway. So yeah, he’s got that record from me.

Crew Chief Eric: But you also hold tons of other records, especially speed. Yeah, I know. So let’s, let’s talk about one important in particular to this race itself. Most people may not realize you were the first woman to go over 200 miles an hour.

227.32 to be exact. And let me repeat that. The first woman to reach over 200 miles an hour. Full stop. What was that like?

Lyn St. James: Well, I mean, actually the first time I went over 200 was in the Ford probe at Talladega. We averaged [00:41:00] 204. You know, I can’t say it was the first woman to go over 200 miles an hour, maybe on an oval track because there there’s others going down Bonneville and other high speed, you know, drag racing.

I mean, hell they’ve been going. Shirley Muldowney has gone over 200 miles an hour. I’m sure the dragster around an oval. Yeah. Over 200 things start to change. I can tell you that. I mean, everything comes up on you so much faster, you know? And then I went average to 12 at Talladega in the Ford Thunderbird in 1988.

And my top speed there was two 32, all those things. When I talk about the Indy 500 being my first oval track race and only my second open wheel at the same time, because of Lamar. And running the most on straight at 230 miles an hour because of running Talladega at 230 some miles an hour and the Thunderbird and also running that oval, even though it was in a stock car.

And this is to me important for any young driver. Or any driver wanting to go someplace they aren’t there yet is to pay a lot of attention to what you’re learning about where you’re [00:42:00] at now, because everything you do now will pay dividends on something that you’re going to do that you haven’t done yet.

But if you aren’t absorbing that, you know what I mean? If you aren’t processing the learning that you’re getting from that experience, you’re having now. You’ll have a hard time remembering it or drawing it when you go to that next thing, the high speed stuff that I had, the open meal stuff that I had, the little bit, it was the prototypes where I was able to run down for us, the turbo XR, 40, the turbo Ford probe, all of those pieces were things that I was able to use to some help, you know, when I got to IndyCar running.

The Cosworth Turbo with a lot of downforce and then trimming it out, understanding the difference between having downforce and then loving it and then losing it because now we trim it out for qualifying, you know, and so it’s just gobs and gobs and gobs of experience that you just have to, you have to be.

able to really retain and retain the physicality of [00:43:00] what it feels like. It isn’t just data, even though by the time I got to Indy, there was data. Oh, I love the data by the way. I mean, I love, give me a graph, you know, let me see my, the trail, you know, of my throttle. Let me see my break, you know, anything I’m like, I want to know, I want to know it was, I loved the data, but you have to really process how it feels.

Because how it feels is what you’re going to really react to. You don’t have data while you’re in the race car. You only have that to study afterward.

Crew Chief Eric: Very, very true. So what came after Indy?

Lyn St. James: I mean, after 2000, my last

Crew Chief Eric: 500,

Lyn St. James: I thought maybe life was over. I mean, to be really honest, because, you know, I’ve been racing solid from what?

1974 to 2000. And then I tried to get a deal together for 2001 and it didn’t happen. And then that’s when I realized it’s over 53 years old, older than any sane person should be driving anyway. At this point, it’s over. And that was tough. I went through a really, really tough time because I had no race to look forward to.

Even though I was only [00:44:00] sometimes running Indy only, I was either working towards it or I knew it was in the, it was going to happen. And I was getting ready for it. I always had that next race. Always, even if it didn’t happen, I was still getting ready for that next race and I had no next race. I can tell you, it was really tough and a lot of other stuff that wasn’t going well in my life as well, but what I did have is my driver development program.

And so I, I had that commitment to try to help the young up and coming drivers. And so I continued with that. And then I got the opportunity to run a vintage race and I didn’t really get the opportunity to run a vintage race at CSRG, which is the vintage race group out in the West Coast. And they asked me if I’d be the grand marshal.

They wanted me there for four days and they had no budget. Isn’t that always

Crew Chief Eric: the case?

Lyn St. James: Yeah. And I said, look at guys, you don’t want me around for four days at a racetrack, particularly if you aren’t paying me. I said, I’ll drive you guys crazy. I’ll be the biggest pain in the ass, but if you get me a ride and something, you don’t have to pay me anything.

Right. You [00:45:00] know, I’ll stay as many days as you want, you know? So for 11 years, I was a pain in the ass. And so I got a ride in a Formula Atlantic car.

Crew Chief Eric: I was going to say, did they get you a Pinto?

Lyn St. James: No. And in fact, I even said, no, I told him anything but a Pinto. Do not show up with a Pinto. Chris Locke had a Formula Atlantic car.

He had a Formula One vintage car, one of the Mario Andretti’s Lotus’s. And then he had this Formula Atlantic car that he had used as a trainer to get ready for him to be able to run this. Lotus Formula One car of Mario’s. He was this really good guy who, who then said, yeah, she could run my car. I remember in the seventies, what, when I was running the Pinto and then I’d run the Vega and then I was running that Corvette, I’d watch those Formula Atlantic cars and I’m like, God, those cars look so cool.

Someday I want to race a Formula Atlantic car. So here I am in 2011, after everything else I’ve done, I finally get to race the Formula Atlantic car. And it was like everything that I could have dreamt about. I mean, it was like a mini Indy car, you know? And so, I mean, I was already. Old and the car was not [00:46:00] as fast as an Indy car, which was a good thing, but it had downforce and it had power and it handled and it did all the things like an Indy car.

And so I got to run a lot of seasons in that the vintage car world opened up to me in 2011. And all of a sudden I had a next race to look forward to. And it was like, I was reborn all over again. So, you know, I continued the driver development program. When you said what happened after, you know, Indy is that.

I did that until around 2013, and then I decided to turn over whatever funds I had raised to create a scholarship fund for women in racing. And I turned it over to the women’s sports foundation, which I was very active in and very involved in. I continued to do vintage racing up until 2019 when I had a bad crash at Indy.

So I got to do vintage racing, but for eight years was fun.

Executive Producer Tania: You hit on this earlier. You talked about it. But you didn’t really. Share any negatives and I’m sure there must have been so the elephant that’s been on the podcast this whole time is the [00:47:00] sexism you undoubtedly must have encountered or maybe you didn’t, but I would be very surprised if that’s the answer.

Did you have any particularly bad experiences? Was it not that bad, but you’re just the type of person that you said, I ain’t dealing with your crap and I’m doing my thing. So get out of my way.

Lyn St. James: It was probably mostly the last, but at the same time, I mean, I had to develop a pretty thick skin. Obviously I hired a basketball coach at one point to help me deal with.

The stuff, this is another thing that I advise people is that you have to have your own personal board of directors or whatever you want to call it, your group that are wanting to support you and that are outside of the circle of your race team and your race so that you could keep a clear head and you get good advice.

And I mean, there, there’s some stories for sure. I mean, and most of them center around Jack Roush, who was the team owner for many of the seasons I was with Ford. Jack and I were not on the same page and he was the boss. There were some really, really rough times. I’ve shared some of [00:48:00] those. The year that I won Daytona the first time, 87, I literally was going to retire from racing at two o’clock in the morning because he wouldn’t let me in the car.

I had one stint and then I was out of the car and there was a thing on the board, you know, when the next shift is, you know, and I just kept getting moved off, moved off, moved off. And I was so pissed, you know, but I had a friend that I called at two o’clock in the morning. In Miami, I’m in Daytona and I said, I’ve had it.

I’m not going to put up with this step anymore. And I said, so I’m going to go press conference that I’m going to retire. And my friend said, Lyn, it’s two o’clock in the morning.

Executive Producer Tania: Nothing good happens after 2am.

Lyn St. James: First of all, nobody cares. Nobody cares if you retire from racing or whether you race or not, you’re going to let somebody else take away your passion.

You’re going to let somebody else really just talk sensitive to me. He said, go and get some sleep. When the sun comes up, you’ll be in the car. So, well, when the sun came up, I got ahold of the head at Ford racing and I called a meeting and with Jack and with him. And I said, I got to get in this car. Ford is the sponsor.

They’re [00:49:00] paying for me to be in this car. And Mr. Ford, who happened to be Lee Morris, I said, you tell him that I’m going to be in this car. And I got in the car and I got my four hours in and at two o’clock that afternoon, I was in victory circle at Daytona. So, I mean, that was a huge, huge lesson, you know what I mean?

So, but you know, Jack and I had had many, many, many of these up until that point and before that and after that, but you know, there was shit that happened, but at the same time, I would be like, I had to focus on the things I could control or that I could do something about. And so I would just continually want to learn more about how to be a better race car driver, how to know like stuff I was telling you about learning more about how to identify what was right or wrong with a race car.

I mean, the people part of it was the hardest part, but I’ve tried to deflect by focusing more on the competition part and how I could be better prepared. That was my way of dealing with it was I can’t. And I, and I had a basketball coach that said, don’t [00:50:00] try to change others. You have to change yourself to adapt, to put yourself in a stronger situation.

You can’t fix the world, Len. Fix yourself and focus on yourself. And so that’s what I did.

Executive Producer Tania: Can’t always fix other people, but you can fix how you react. To other people

Lyn St. James: and be better prepared. And, you know, just the whole thing was, you know, most of it, I mean, it was just get over it and focus on my performance and, uh, and let it speak hopefully more, but it’s hard.

It’s hard. I, the hardest part with my crew, because in most cases. Literally, almost 99. 9 percent of the time, the crew working on my car, we were like, together, we were a unit. They were the ones that had to put up with a lot of the shit. It was hard to try to help keep them motivated and to help keep them glued together.

Because they were the ones that directly impacted my performance. But at the same time there, if their hands were tied, they were more frustrated than I was, you know what I mean? And in some cases, cause they knew more, you know, you just had to focus on the stuff you can do something about and let the rest of it,

Executive Producer Tania: [00:51:00] was there a difference between when you were on the amateur level versus going to the professional level, or is it pretty much the same?

Lyn St. James: No, it was pretty much the same. I mean, it was probably worse on the amateur level because they were mostly my buddies. And then they’re like, well, you go make a sandwich. I mean, cause that’s what I was doing too. I was making the sandwiches, doing the timing and scoring, go make a sandwich, go shut up and make a sandwich.

You know, you know, and I’d be like,

do you think it’s better now? I think so. But you know, the thing that I still worry because it’s, the world has not changed as much as we would like it and it’s evolved a bit, but I do worry partly because. They’re all so much younger now. In other words, you have to understand, I was in most cases old, as I said, old enough to be some of their mothers, you know, I mean, a lot of the people that I worked with, I was so much older than them.

You already knew

Executive Producer Tania: how to deal with a lot of that stuff. I did. I didn’t

Lyn St. James: understand that. I really had a more mature brain than most. And so many of the gals today that are out there competing are young [00:52:00] and that’s great. Cause everybody is younger. I mean, But at the same time that they haven’t had life experiences, you know, and, and I’m a little worried that they’re not ready to figure out how to deal with it.

And you can’t train that you can’t, you know, it’s, it comes. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: One of those things you don’t understand until it happens to you, where somebody is acting away just because you happen to be female, or you happen to be even with minorities or anything like that, like until you’ve had that experience. For yourself, then it’s like, wow, that’s what that is.

Lyn St. James: Yeah. And you know, many of you gals are very attractive. When you

Crew Chief Eric: had that perm back in the day.

Lyn St. James: Oh my God. Some of these hairstyles. I know. Oh God. God, I know. It’s the way we laugh about those. That’s for sure. I mean, there’s just the way the culture of the way society is, you know, and there’s a lot of stuff that goes on.

And, but when I hear some of these stories, Tonya, that these gals have told me. And then I go, well, what did you say? Or what did you do? Oh, you know, I didn’t really know. And I didn’t want to complain. I said, you grab [00:53:00] him by the collar and say, don’t do that. Not going to happen. You know, sometimes you’ve got to stop it.

Executive Producer Tania: Unfortunately, we’re not trained to be that way. So that is one thing we could do to help the young ladies is train that assertiveness and to not tolerate That behavior when it happens and yeah, don’t make it exactly that.

Lyn St. James: Don’t go screaming and hollering and make a big fuss, but stop it at the butt. You know, nip it at the butt.

Exactly. Yeah. You don’t

Executive Producer Tania: have to go all postal, if you will, on somebody. You can make your point assertively and say, this does not fly. Sorry.

Lyn St. James: That’s exactly. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So I, I was thinking about this. You’re seeing more all female teams these days. Take Beth Perretta’s team as an example, or the Iron Dames who just competed in the 22 Le Mans.

Do you think what you did back at Le Mans, you know, in the late eighties, early nineties set the stage for that?

Lyn St. James: Well, first of all, because. I was just the woman, you know, the girl, whatever. I don’t think it set the stage. I mean, it laid some [00:54:00] groundwork to create in the minds of the others. And I don’t mean the other females, but I think of the, of the guys that, oh, I may be making assumptions, it’s wrong, but it’s like, well, she’s okay.

I think there was an acceptance. I mean, like Wayne Taylor was actually my teammate at Le Mans, you know, the year that I ran with, because we had two cars and I was with Gordon Weiss and Ray Bellum, but Wayne Taylor was in the other car, you know, of the two cars. And I’m only using that as an example that I, you know, Wayne’s now a dad and he’s got his own team and he’s totally receptive and open to having females.

You know, on a scene, and I’m not saying that’s because of me, but I’m just saying, I think that I planted some seeds. I kind of created an image that, oh, I mean, it is okay. Not that they wanted it necessarily, not that they were excited about it, not that they were going to celebrate it, but it was just, it was okay.

And then you have the women that are now showing up, which is amazing and their performance. is that clearly it’s okay. In other words, their performance is solid. So whether it’s Catherine Legge or Simona or [00:55:00] the Iron Dames today or Anna Beatrice or, I mean, we could go on, you know, and on with the Sarah Fisher.

I mean, these drivers earned. Those seats and earn those. I mean, they had their ups and downs is like every race car driver has. But I think that that’s what excites me is that the ones showing up with a rare exception are fully qualified, fully earning the respect and delivering the performance. And I think that’s what needed to happen, you know, I was the odd one out to a certain degree because I was the only one and thank God I didn’t mess up too much.

And I kind of opened the, the minds, I guess, the plant, the seed and open the minds that it’s where I think I made a difference and I didn’t plan this. Believe me, it was just my own stubbornness. And determination to not ever stop was that I was around long enough the whole decade of the 90s that I mean, if I had done Indy one rookie of the year, which I only had a one race deal from JC Penney, everybody’s expectation was, Hey, check the box.

You’re old, you know, you’re the oldest rookie. You’re done. [00:56:00] And I had a one race deal. Dick and everybody was like, we did it. Terrific. Next. There was no next, except I decided there was. And then, and I went to JC Penney and I, you know, and I kept going and going. So I think the best thing was that I continued to compete in the nineties while these other kids were growing up and getting old enough to then be there, you know, and then.

Sarah came and Danica came, you know, so there was enough continuation. If there’s a big gap, a big void in history, in anything, if you go like, like this, and then there’s this big gap and it just falls off, people forget about what happened back here. Where I think there was enough sustaining story about a woman that’s still competing, you know, and then you’ve got Michelle Mouton started the women in motorsports commission in 2010.

It was a trickle, a little activity, but at least there was activity continuing and Danica going to NASCAR. I mean, the whole thing is that there was sustaining enough. And now we’ve got more numbers, which is what [00:57:00] we’ve needed for the longest time. And so it

Executive Producer Tania: still felt like a huge hurdle, but at least you could see there is a possibility for us.

We could also be,

Lyn St. James: I really got to know you, Tanya. I liked you.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, thank you. Oh, I’m enjoying you very much. So

Lyn St. James: you’re, you’re that generation now that’s, you know, your perspective valuable and is, you know, really, I mean, you’re living it. And yeah, yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: living it. And yeah, we’ll see. So another question, given what you know now and what you went through, if you were starting over, let’s say, I think the first thing you’d probably say is I would start earlier.

Lyn St. James: Yeah. Start younger.

Executive Producer Tania: So you’re starting earlier now, but you’re starting today. Would you still jump straight into competition license? into the races, or do you think you would have gone a different route, maybe built up to that differently, or your personality, you would have just jumped in. So

Lyn St. James: that’s a really good question.

I mean, I definitely [00:58:00] would have started earlier, even though I worry when they start five, six, seven, eight years old, that they’re going to get burned out by the time, you know, they kind of peak at that age of seven, 16, 17, 18, when the world is really should start opening up to them, that they’re burned out.

You know, I, I worry when. Cause after, you know, 10 or 15 years of that life, you can get burned out. And so, you know, I wish I’d known about like things like autocross and even though I hate pylons. So a pylon is a target to me, you know, I got to hit it. You know, you mentioned like track days, like, you know, if I had had more.

Track time, more seat time, because I love testing and I love going against the clock. I love that. Give me a lap time and the target

Executive Producer Tania: fixate on.

Lyn St. James: Yeah. And also the, you know, the, the data that’s available today. I mean, I’d be, I’d be looking at those graphs and, you know, and absolutely loving every bit of it.

The by product of that is, Oh, I’m going to be faster than it. And I can take the corner. You know, I can, I know I can take that corner because. I’ve done it, you know, and I’m going to take it better than the idiot [00:59:00] next to me. But it was as much about the joy of driving, the joy of driving the race car and then of getting the most out of the race car.

So those are my priorities. The joy of getting in the car and getting the most out of the car. And then, oh, by the way, beating that’s the third piece for me. And I think that’s in my nature, no matter how young or old I am, because it is hard to learn while you’re doing it. You know, there was those early races were rough.

I mean, I had a guy that. protested me for giving them the finger in the race. I was like, what? You know, and I had to get witnesses to come in from the corner to say that I was only pointing him by and I, you know, I don’t know what finger I used. I don’t know, but it was like, you know, I mean, it was silly, stupid stuff that I had to deal with, you know, really early on that if I hadn’t been in that wheel to wheel competition mode right out of the box, I think I probably, you know, would have.

been a little more comfortable, but,

Executive Producer Tania: and I’d honestly question whichever finger you may or may not have used, had you been a different gender, would anyone have protested you? Probably not.

Lyn St. James: A big deal, right? Yeah. No, I [01:00:00] don’t know. You know, I think knowing what I know about the sport and knowing what I know about me starting sooner and maybe taking advantage of what’s available now, which would be technology data.

I would have definitely fought to have a better race car. I

Executive Producer Tania: was about

Lyn St. James: to say, would you have still chosen Ford Pinto? Even though I have to admit, I have to, I’ve watched the Miata, the spec Miata series and all that, and that’s some of the best training ground because race craft is so critical. And if you’re in a series that there’s too much variance.

In the speeds, or you’re in a series where there’s like 6 or 7 cars or 8 cars or 10 cars in your class versus 30 cars in your class and have them all be the same. That’s where you get race crap. I have to admit that I would have liked that because I think that’s where you really develop the confidence and, you know, the knowledge and.

And you learn how to be a clean racer. You gotta be a clean racer to be successful. You gotta bring the car home. Yep. You know, and you can’t be running people off the track, you know.

Crew Chief Eric: So Lyn, looking at all the cars that exist in the fields between, you know, IMSA and [01:01:00] SRO and all these different racing organizations that are out there.

If you were starting today, is there something you would love to jump behind the wheel of?

Lyn St. James: I just don’t look at it that way anymore. I mean, I just posted actually on Facebook, my favorite race car that I have had my butt in that I would love to race again. And I will actually, I’ve talked to him about it is the Ford GT that Kevin Doran built from the 2007.

So it’s like the GT3 car, you know, it’s prepared to a GT3 level. And it was a GT3 car that speed handling package. I would get pretty impatient if I don’t have a lot of power. I’ve gotten spoiled where I like a car that I want to do the breaking. I don’t want. ABS. I don’t want to go so to the highest level of technology.

I looked at the Ford GT that won Le Mans in 16 and I saw that. I think it was at Long Beach when they were still where they were running an IMSA. And I mean, it was like. Oh, my God. Way too complicated. I mean, you know, the cockpit, everything on the steering wheel. I mean, all of it. It was like, you know, I so I want some simplicity and that’s kind of the era would have been the probably the mid [01:02:00] 2000s and that for GT was just fabulous.

So the new shit is way too much. It’s way too much, too complicated,

Executive Producer Tania: especially when it breaks.

Lyn St. James: Yeah. Yeah. And then, and I even remember at the time with Chris, the technology is better today, but when we were with the Ford probe, you know, the thing would just stop running out of the, you know, and nobody, nobody knew all it’s.

got to be the black box, you know, and they just changed the box. Nobody knows what was wrong with the car, but that’s how they learned. The point I’m making is I don’t want a lot of technology. So I would want to have a car that I’m racing and driving and not technology and not having, and then just a car, a car that you drive.

Lots of power, lots of power, brakes and handles. That’s all.

Crew Chief Eric: I think what we learned though, is by reading between the lines that Lyn is a blue oval gal through and through with that answer.

Lyn St. James: Well, I mean, Ford was good to me. I mean, seriously, I mean, I’d be very, very candid on this. I had Ford as a sponsor on one year contracts from 1981 to 1994 between personal service [01:03:00] and full race sponsorship in good equipment dealing with a very difficult owner at one point, but still that gave me such quality experience and exposure and race.

I would have not had the kind of career I had without that kind of experience. So, I mean, I, I have a loyalty to Ford that will run forever in my, my veins. My blood’s not blue. It’s just that, you know, I, I have a loyalty to Ford for what we did together. I mean, they didn’t give it to me, but I earned it, but I worked hard to get it.

But at the same time they were there and there were critical people that at the right time. And I talked about that a lot, quite frankly, is that it’s the people that have your back When you’re not in the room within the team, within corporate sponsorship, within, even if it’s the chief steward, you have to know who’s in charge and you have to know who’s got your back because many times it’ll be somebody that will make the difference in your career when you weren’t even in the room.

You didn’t even know that conversation happened. That’s why relationships [01:04:00] are so critical and you have to pay attention, not just who your friends are, but who to make sure. Understands who you are and what you’re about. That’s very, very important. And

Executive Producer Tania: those are true words, not only in the racing environment, but

Lyn St. James: any business in any relationship.

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Executive Producer Tania: I

Lyn St. James: mean, most businesses have a fairly structured business. You know who the boss is or, you know, who’s in charge, who’s the manager, whatever racing, it’s, it’s a free for all. And you just don’t know necessarily who can make the difference. And so there’s, it’s a harder to reel it in, you know,

Executive Producer Tania: shifting gears a little bit.

So tell us about this foundation. You founded the women in the winner’s circle,

Lyn St. James: the women in the winner’s circle, I have disbanded. So that doesn’t exist. I closed it in 2013 and turned the funds over to the women’s sports foundation for project podium. But what I did co found this year with Beth Perretta is women in motorsports, North America, and that I’m very proud, very excited.

We have a working group of over 40 people. I mean, I have to admit, I was [01:05:00] totally focused in my past activities for drivers because I’ve always felt that it’s the drivers who are the most visible. And so if you’ve got women drivers out there successful. Then it’ll trickle over to everybody. But the reality is it’s cause I’m a driver, I guess.

And that’s how I felt the world was functioning is that now we have Beth as a team owner, people like Alba Cullen, you know, who used to be GM representative for NASCAR engineering now works for Hendrick. You know, so we have engineering, we have the business side. We have Laurie Eberhard, who’s a woman attorney and not just women.

We have men who are our allies. You know, we’ve got Dean Case, John Doonan, and Jim Jordan, and people that I know will have your back, even when you’re not in the room. So now we have this working group. We got our heads together last year, and we spent six months on the phone, once a month, talking about how can we make a difference for women in motorsports, in all disciplines, in all categories.

And that that’s how we’re going to move the ball forward. That’s how we’re going to help grow the sport. We’ve got an organization. [01:06:00] It’s a 501 C3. We’ve got priorities in advocacy and mentorship. I wanted to create sentiment. There’s a lot going on. I mean, there’s shift up now. There’s. Michelle Della Petta started a, you know, a scholarship program in her next gen.

There’s all kinds of stuff happening. The problem is that it’s all a little fragmented here and there. So I said, I want to create some kind of an umbrella over all of the stuff going on. SCCA has their women on track. So we’ve just caught this website that I’m most proud of that has multiple pages of information about Racing 101.

What kind of jobs are even existing within motorsports? You know, if you go to a website of a corporation, you know that you can find out the structure of the company. If you go to a motorsports website, all they give you is the schedule or how to become a member.

Executive Producer Tania: There’s no careers tab at the top.

Lyn St. James: Exactly. Exactly. And I’m finding that some of the times now there isn’t the way we’re at the bottom, but you know, I’m just trying to be information central. Also everybody who’s are part of our [01:07:00] community. It’s not a membership deal where you pay a membership fee and all that. Our community or people who are mentorship minded, you know, that their mindset is that if you pick up the phone and call them or you send them an email, they will respond because they want to mentor others and even mentor each other.

So we’re just kind of this umbrella organization to pull everything together that’s happening. And whether you’re in the media or you’re. A student, or whether you’re in the sport already, or you’re interested in the sport, you can come to this website and hopefully get your hands wrapped around what’s possible.

And that’s what Women in Motorsports North America is all about.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s amazing. Cause some people don’t want to be a driver, but they very much love the sport. And there’s so many ways they could be involved. You know, whether you’re a reporter or commentator or you’re, you’re an engineer, so you’re working as crew or whatever.

And. It really is hard to know what those opportunities are. So that’s a great resource for folks.

Lyn St. James: Yeah. And you often start as a volunteer. We know that. I mean, that’s what our sport, the lifeblood of our sport of volunteers. Do you actually [01:08:00] know that you could actually become paid and have a career? You know, you may start as a volunteer, but you ultimately you could have a career.

So that’s kind of what we’re trying to accomplish.

Executive Producer Tania: Excellent. And that website for anyone who’s interested is women in motor sports and a. com

Lyn St. James: women. We call it women now, but that doesn’t help for the website, but it’s yes, it’s women in motor sports and a.

Executive Producer Tania: And it sounds like there’s an upcoming event later this year.

Lyn St. James: Yeah, we are very excited. We just literally launched it today, October 5th and 6th. We are going to have our women with drive summit. The debt proceeds will benefit women in motor sports, North America, but we have two days of panel discussions and keynote speakers. It’s going to be at the Hendrick racing team headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.

And it’s, you know, literally are full of agenda. So if you go to our website, womeninmotorsportsna. com you can click on that to sign up and register for this two day seminar. It’s going to be full of good folks, interesting people, [01:09:00] not just in motorsports. We’ve got a lot of people in motorsports that sometimes you can learn from best practices from other organizations.

So we’ve got sailing, you know, is another sport that women compete in and often with men. And we have other sports like that and other people coming in from other disciplines to talk about their Experiences and to help our sport be better. If you go to our website, the survey pops right up. And it’s a survey that I did through women in the winner’s circle.

When I had it back in 2004, we had 1856 respondents, 75 percent men. And it was all about the attitudes of women in motor sports. It amazed me that 75 percent of the respondents were men. It was very interesting. I had all kinds of research that was done with the data, but I had nowhere to go with it. I mean, it was.

Done with University of Indianapolis, U of I, a professor from the Women’s Sports Foundation from a university that did the analysis, but we never published it. It was just kind of there. And so what we did was [01:10:00] with my help, Cindy Sisson from GS Events and Shifting Gears. She said, let’s redo that survey.

It’d be great to compare it to the data that was. In 2004, and so we just upgraded it a little bit with the current sanctioning bodies and the types of racing going on, you know, in the, in social media, which we didn’t have back then. So, that survey is now online available through our website takes about 10 minutes to go through and it’s the same questions that we had back in 2004, and then we’ll be able to analyze those.

To just see what the attitudes about women in motor sports have changed, or it’s the same.

Executive Producer Tania: And if any of our listeners are interested in helping contribute to this survey, we’ll be sure to include all the web addresses and everything in our show notes.

Lyn St. James: Terrific. And then we’re going to keep it going because we’re going to announce the results of the survey.

at the October event. So the survey will be up for a while. I mean, my goal is to make sure we get at least that many respondents to compare what we had before.

Executive Producer Tania: Excellent. That sounds very exciting. I guess as we wrap up a little bit, what would you say if a young girl walked up to you right [01:11:00] now and asked, why did you, why do you race?

What would your answer be to them?

Lyn St. James: I mean, it’s actually because I love it and I found my passion. I mean, I think that we all have untapped reservoir that doesn’t always get tapped until we find our passion. I was always a hard worker. I was always, I always tried to be really good at what I did and, you know, get good grades, whatever you want to call it.

But I was kind of lost to be honest, until I found racing and racing found me. And so I just don’t think you don’t, we don’t know. What’s available to us or what’s possible until you do something that you’re just so passionate about, because it, it makes you better at everything. It makes you better, not only at finding that and doing that, but it also makes you better at everything else.

So it’s just find your passion. It really is find your passion. It may be racing. It may not. Don’t hesitate to explore the world to find something that just. You are so passionate about it, so compelled that it brings the best out in you. It brings everything you, you know, everything you have out because you’ll find that you have power, you have intelligence, you have energy, you [01:12:00] have whatever that you don’t know you have, that you maybe have to drag yourself to do the other things that you have to do.

Executive Producer Tania: And don’t let any of the naysayers tell you you can’t.

Lyn St. James: Yeah. And don’t let anybody take it away from you. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And on that, Lyn, any other shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like. Talk about the, we didn’t cover thus far.

Lyn St. James: Well, thank you. I mean, I’m going to add, I am going to add one thing. Women need to be invited.

Men just show up. My piece of advice to every motor sports racetrack, every club, just invite the women by yourself, ladies, or, well, and if it’s the women out there that show up, don’t wait to be invited, but I just think it’s inherent in us, you know, that we just, we feel welcomed if we’ve been invited as opposed to that.

Oh, we just got to show up. You know, we hear it all the time. And that’s. It’s not just women actually, but it’s, if you, it’s a simple thing. I mean, I can’t, I mean, myself, I thought, well, I don’t, of course I don’t do that anymore. Now I’ll walk into any place, but you know, back in the day, I wouldn’t necessarily, you know, and if you don’t see someone [01:13:00] like yourself, then you don’t necessarily think I belong there.

And if you don’t belong there, you tend to not go there. Yep.

Crew Chief Eric: So it leads to a great question. What would you do to change the programs to make the paddock more inviting without being invited?

Lyn St. James: Yeah. I mean, without being invited, well, I mean, you don’t need to do a ladies day. You don’t need to have a ladies section, but think about having women that are part of your organization already in most cases.

I mean, there’s hardly and celebrate them, bring them forth as a part of your. Organization. And it’s an important part of your organization because I guarantee you, they probably are. And so a lot of times women are comfortable being in the background, you know, but if they work for you or they volunteer for you, celebrate that, elevate that as part of your story without making it sound like it’s a tokenism thing.

And if you don’t have anybody to celebrate, think about that because that means you’re probably missing an important piece of the puzzle and, and that’s how it’s going to [01:14:00] grow. I mean, I can remember with automobile dealerships, when I used to go to these dealers back in the 80s for Ford, you know, how do we sell more cars to women?

I mean, this is probably not a good example. One of the things I would do is I, can I use your restroom? And if you go in the restroom and it’s filthy, I mean, dealerships, it was often that way. And there would be nothing but baby car magazines around. Not that you should have women’s magazines around, but I mean, just think about what makes a woman comfortable to be in your space, to be in your environment.

So invitation, cleanliness, openness, celebrating the women that are already there. And the women need to step in and take some ownership. The women who are there need to take some ownership.

Executive Producer Tania: Put yourself out there, step up to the plate.

Lyn St. James: It’s a two way street from that standpoint. I would appreciate that you promote women in motorsports in North America because that’s ongoing, you know, and obviously a lot of your listeners are probably women or young girls or females.

And also appreciate the survey. You know, I do have a book out that’s been out for a while, so it’s not new. If people just go to my website, they’re in my [01:15:00] garage and I ship them out. And if you tell me you want me to autograph it, I’ll autograph it. Love going to the races. Just go to the races, man. Just go to the races.

Have fun.

Crew Chief Eric: With 31 speed records earned over a 20 year span with many. many wins and titles in her logbook. Lyn St. James reset more than just metrics in a record book. She rebooted the way we look at and think about motorsports. And because of her perseverance and accomplishments, she has inspired generations of talented women to also get behind the wheel of a race car.

Executive Producer Tania: And at 74 years young, her efforts to expand and equalize motorsports are far from over, and we can’t thank her enough. For all she’s done and continues to do for the racing world at large. To learn more about Lyn, you can visit her website www.Lynstjames.com, as well as her latest program, www.womeninmotorsportsna.com.

Or follow her on social@Lyn.st. James on Facebook [01:16:00] or search Lyn St. James on LinkedIn.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. And Lyn, we cannot thank you enough for spending your evening with us here on break fix to walk us through the past and into the future. I want to again, thank you for everything you’ve done for the motor sports community at large and all the ladies that are out there that might be.

Considering going to the track, like Lyn said, go to the track.

Lyn St. James: Oh, I’m exhausted. So I’m glad that it worked out.

Executive Producer Tania: Thank you very much.

Lyn St. James: All right.

Crew Chief Brad: 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 Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, You can call or text us at 202 630 1770. Or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey [01:17:00] everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of BreakFix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.

For as little as 2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig Newtons, gummy bears, and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT motorsports. And remember without fans, supporters, and members like you.

None of this would be [01:18:00] possible.

Highlights

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

  • 00:00 Introduction to Break/Fix Podcast
  • 00:33 Meet Lyn St. James
  • 01:37 Lyn’s Early Racing Days
  • 05:21 The Pinto Story
  • 07:56 Ford Sponsorship and Racing Career
  • 11:26 Transition to Professional Racing
  • 16:32 Learning and Competing in IMSA and Trans Am
  • 20:05 Challenges and Triumphs in Racing
  • 30:42 The Road to Indy
  • 37:52 Rookie of the Year and Early Challenges
  • 38:14 Learning the Ropes at Indy
  • 40:30 Breaking Speed Records
  • 43:26 Life After Racing
  • 46:52 Facing Sexism in Racing
  • 53:36 The Evolution of Women in Motorsports
  • 57:29 Advice for Aspiring Racers
  • 01:04:33 Women in Motorsports North America
  • 01:10:53 Final Thoughts and Reflections

Bonus Content

Learn More

With 31 speed records earned over a 20 year span, with many wins and titles in her log book. Lyn. St James reset more than just metrics in a record book, she rebooted the way we look and think about Motorsports. And because of her perseverance and accomplishments, she has inspired generations of talented women to also get behind the wheel of a race car.

And at 74 years young, her efforts to expand and equalize Motorsports are far from over and we can’t thank her enough for all she’s done and continues to do for the racing world at large.

To learn more about Lyn, you can visit her website www.lynstjames.com as well as her latest program www.womeninmotorsportsna.com or follow her on social @lyn.stjames on facebook or search Lyn St. James on LinkedIn. 

Lyn’s path to professional racing wasn’t linear. She helped build a business, worked as a secretary and bookkeeper, and attended endurance races like Daytona and Sebring. Seeing “real people” behind the wheel – not just superhumans – made her believe she could do it too.

She joined the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), earned her competition license, and started racing. Eventually, she caught the attention of Ford—but not without effort. “I bugged them for three years,” she says. “I’m convinced they hired me just to get me to stop.” Ford wasn’t thrilled about the Pinto story, but Lyn insisted on keeping it in her narrative. “It gets laughs. It’s a great conversation piece.”

  • Lyn St. James on Break/Fix Podcast
    The cars of Lyn St. James - featured at Amelia Island Concours
  • Lyn St. James on Break/Fix Podcast
  • Talladega Ford Top Speed Vehicle
  • Talladega Ford Top Speed Vehicle on Display at Amelia Island
  • Lyn St. James Spice GTP Le Mans 1989
    Spice GTP/LMP1 Lemans 1989
  • Lemans 1991
  • Lyn St. James on Break/Fix Podcast

TransAm, IMSA, and the Climb to the Top

With Ford’s backing, Lyn raced in the Kelly American Challenge, TransAm, and IMSA series. Her stats speak volumes:

  • 53 TransAm races with 6 wins
  • 62 IMSA GT races with 17 top-five and 37 top-ten finishes

She raced alongside legends like Hurley Haywood, Peter Gregg, and Hans Stuck. “I watched them like a student,” she says. “I learned by observing their lap times, their pit setups, everything.”

One standout mentor was Bob Riley, a chassis expert who taught Lyn how to communicate what she felt in the car. “He asked the right questions. I had to learn how to speak engineer.”

In an era before simulators and telemetry, Lyn relied on instinct, observation, and conversation. “We had no data except for our butts and our fingers,” she jokes. She’d walk pit lane with drivers like Jim Busby, asking them to critique cars based on visual cues alone. Practice was hard to come by. She’d arrive early to walk the track or beg for a slow lap in a rental car. “It’s a frustrating sport,” she admits. “But when you nail a lap, it’s elation.”

Photo courtesy Lyn St. James

Final Thoughts: Grit Over Glamour

Lyn’s favorite road course? Watkins Glen. “The flow, the rhythm—it’s just beautiful.” Her least favorite? Sonoma. “I never got a good lap there. It’s brutal.”

She also recalled the dominance of Audi’s all-wheel-drive cars in IMSA. “It was awful. You’d be hanging on in a corner, and they’d just drive by. It was an unfair advantage.”

Lyn’s story isn’t just about racing. It’s about resilience. She didn’t have coaches, simulators, or a racing pedigree. She had determination, curiosity, and a willingness to fail forward. “Racing is tough,” she says. “But it’s so rewarding. Just one good lap can hook you all over again.”


Women in Motorsports NA (WIMNA)

Women in Motorsports North America is a community of professionals devoted to supporting opportunities for women across all disciplines of Motorsport by creating an inclusive, resourceful environment to foster mentorship, advocacy, education, and growth, thereby ensuring the continued strength and successful future of our sport.

Take the WIMNA Survey!

In 2005, this online survey, was commissioned by the Lyn St. James Foundation and conducted by Prof. Butch Fennema and Prof. James Stephens, University of Indianapolis, and Don Sabo, Ph.D. D’Youville, College, with the primary goal is to understand race fans’ attitudes toward women in racing. Participation highlights included the following and our goal is to broaden the reach through the advances in social media, etc. and our collective reach. 

    • 1887 motorsports fans completed the survey; 74% males, 26% females
    • 95% or 1801 are US Citizens
    • 85% were between the ages of 20-57 (ranging between 8 and 84)
    • All 50 states were represented, as well as from 15 other countries
    • The 2022 study is being done in partnership with Dr. David Ferguson, Asst Professor, Michigan Sate University. David has done considerable research in racing for over ten years with the top teams in NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, and IMSA 

Our ask is that you take the 10 minutes to complete the study and to comment on your experience. You might also find this current research of interest. Thanks!


Rare Find! – The Original “Girls Guide to Cars”

There aren’t many of these books still remaining out there in the wild. And we are very fortunate to have snagged a copy for safe keeping. This 160 page book was published in 1984 and is designed like a factory owners manual found in your glovebox -but- for Women. “Lyn St. James’s Car Owners Manual for Women” covers everything from how to change a tire, maintain your engine, to buying and selling vehicles. This might very well be the earliest execution of the “Girls Guide to Cars” idea, and we have Lyn to thank for it! #neverstoplearning


The following content has been brought to you by SRO Motorsports America and their partners at AWS, Crowdstrike, Fanatec, Pirelli, and the Skip Barber Racing School.

Can you explain it to a 3rd grader?

What happens when you put a seasoned gearhead in the hot seat and let an eight-year-old grill him about cars? You get one of the most charming, enlightening, and downright hilarious episodes of GTM’s Break/Fix podcast to date.

In this special edition titled “Can You Explain It to a Third Grader,” Mountain Man Dan faces off against a panel of one: Clio, our host’s daughter and a budding motorsports enthusiast. Her mission? To ask 11 questions about cars that she’s always wanted answers to – and Dan’s challenge is to explain them in terms a third grader can understand.


Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Listen on Apple
Listen on YouTube
Listen on Spotify

Clio kicks things off with a deceptively simple question: “Why do cars need motor oil?” Dan dives into the world of lubrication, explaining how oil keeps engine parts from overheating and seizing up. Even electric vehicles, he notes, have components that may need lubrication – though he admits EVs aren’t his specialty.

Next up: “What part of the car breaks very easily?” Dan gives a nod to the fragile plastic interior bits of modern cars and then shifts gears to engine belts, explaining how a broken belt can take out your alternator or power steering. Clio, ever observant, asks if he means seatbelts. Dan clarifies with a mini lesson on serpentine belts and their rubbery, ribbed design.

When asked what makes a car stop, Dan takes Clio through the evolution of braking systems – from wood and leather pads to hydraulic calipers and even air and electric brakes used in larger vehicles and trailers.

Synopsis

In this episode of Break/Fix, we take a fun and educational spin by inviting an eight-year-old panelist, Clio, to ask automotive questions to their expert, Mountain Man Dan. The episode is inspired by Jeff Foxworthy’s game show concept but tailored to make car-related topics understandable to a third grader. Topics covered include the necessity of motor oil, car parts that break easily, the working of the braking system, internal combustion engine functionality, car crash survivability, electricity use in cars, hybrid vehicles, and self-driving cars. Additionally, Clio shares her experience at racetracks, her favorite part about cars, and her interaction with monster trucks. The conversation underscores the importance of involving kids in motorsports for the future of the industry.

  • Why do cars need motor oil?
  • What part of the car makes it stop?
  • What parts of the car breaks easily?
  • How does the engine work?
  • Can cars survive crashes or big big fires?
  • How does electricity get used in a car?
  • Do people race in old-fashioned cars?
  • Are there self-driving cars?

Transcript

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

Remember that show with Jeff Foxworthy where we used to watch people show off how smart they were and if they could pass a fifth grade exam. Well, tonight we’re taking a break fix spin on that in a special called, can you Explain it to a third grader where Mountain Man Dan squares off against automotive questions from our eight year old panelist who just happens to be my daughter Clio.

So I don’t know about y’all, but I can’t wait to see how this turns out. And with that, let the games begin. Okay, Mr. Dan, I’ve written down 11 questions about cars that I wanna know. And you’re gonna have to answer all, okay. Why do cars need motor oil? Can’t they just run off electricity? That wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that electricity would be an electric car [00:01:00] and the normal internal combustion engine or diesel engines are requiring.

Oil for lubrication because there’s components inside the engines that move, and without the lubrication, the metal will get hot and seize up. I do believe that even some of the electrical vehicles, some of the components on those might require oil for lubrication as well, but as I’m not very versed in electric vehicles, don’t hold me to that.

Okay. Are you ready for the second question? I am ready. What part of the car breaks very easily. That could be a long list of things. So I would say apart that breaks, I would say for breaking very easily from the early to mid eighties on when they started putting a lot of plastic components in vehicles, especially like interior pieces, they break very easily and especially with young children such as yourself, you guys not exactly the most gentle with interior components.

So it is not uncommon for something in the interior of the vehicle to break. But did you have some specific in regards to. Items that break. I was thinking [00:02:00] like something inside the car, like name one thing inside the car that could break like very easily if the car were to break down again. I would say a very common thing for cars to break down alongside the road would be something such as a belt for the engine.

You know, if a belt breaks on the car, then you can lose things like your alternator, which is what gives you power or your power steering, which makes it more difficult to turn or do you think will clear. What kind of belt are you talking about? Are you, like you talking about the seatbelt or like a different kind of belt?

A different kind of belt. The belt on the car engine, there’s multiple types. There’s VB band, there’s rib. Most newer cars go with a rib style, which is for a serpentine system. So basically if you take in, just make a complete. Loop, and that’s what your belt is. It’s from start to finish. It just continues and it’s made of like a rubber material.

Some have fiber in them, like thread type material inside of them to help make them stronger. And they’ve been used on cars [00:03:00] for hundreds of years now, since the beginning. I remember. It’s kinda like. The pattern is like up and over. It’s kind of like castle Walls, how they’re like this, but smaller and on a circle wheel or like a circle chain.

Yeah. Similar like when you’re out in the garage with your dad and you. See on the side of the engine, you’ll see the belt there. And of course, we’ve got plenty of times, we have the engines out of the cars there. And when you’re paying attention to what we’re doing and not just playing and writing with chalk in the driveway and stuff, we’ll be glad to point it out to you.

Okay. Are you ready for question three? I think I am. What part of the car makes it stop? I’m talking about like the brake on the car. What part of the brake makes the car stop? Okay, so originally one of the very original methods of brakes, and I believe it was with Mercedes, when they first built the first [00:04:00] vehicle, they used wood and leather material for the brake pads.

The original versions were used with. Like a drum type system uses pressure to push out and that friction calls it to slow down. And then there’s also styles where they use a brake around where it’s, it’s a wheel and it’ll have like a strap come around it. When pressure’s applied, it draws pressure on the outside of that.

But with motor vehicles, it’s more common to see the drum or newer vehicles from probably the late seventies, early eighties on, they have what’s called a rotor and a caliper setup. And what that does is, The rotor will spin and a caliper sits on it. When you push the brake pedal, it’ll squeeze in on the side of it so it’s moving freely and easily.

And then when you push the pedal, it’ll squeeze in on it and uses hydraulic pressure to push in on that. The friction causes you to slow it down, but then there’s also, other than hydraulic, one larger vehicles such as your tractor and trailers, they use air brakes. And air pressure is what actually holds the brakes disengaged.

When you push the pedal, the air is [00:05:00] released out of the valve to put pressure on, and there’s also electric brakes on trailers, which it uses electromagnets to create the pressure on the shoe or the caliper to cause the friction. You hurt. D three first questions. Now I have seven more questions for you.

Okay. How does the engine work in a car? Okay, so I’ll go with the most common, which would be your internal combustion engine. The easiest way to explain that, which most internal combustion engines and cars are. Four stroke engines the easiest way I was taught, it’s called the suck, squeeze, bang pop. The suck phase of it is where it pulls air and fuel into the cylinder.

The squeeze portion is when the piston comes back up, creates compression, and the bang portion of it is when the spark plug creates ignition to ignite the fuel and air pushes the cylinder back down. The pop portion is when it releases those spent exhaust fumes out through the exhaust system. So [00:06:00] that’s the more technical, but basically use combustion to make a rotating mass, give you power that transfers to your transmission now to your power line in your vehicle.

So what is combustion? So combustion is when something ignites and. All different materials have different combustion points or flashpoints. So like fuel compared to diesel have different flashpoint. The combustion process and car engines uses the fuel, the compression. Which is basically compression is just squeezing really tight.

So when it squeezes that down really tight, it creates heat, which helps with the ignition process for the combustion when the spark plug ignites the fuel. Okay. Are you ready for the fifth question? I sure am. This will be tough. Can cars survive crashes? Depending on the extent of the crash, [00:07:00] yes, because many cars, when they get into crashes and there’s actually testing done, which has been done for the past few decades, companies like Volvo and SOB were very big on the safety aspects of the crashes.

So they would test and purposely use like crash test dummies in the vehicles to see how it would impact the passengers. And so they would run ’em into walls and other vehicles and things like that just to see what the aftermath was, what they would do in that process. They’d be able to give it a rating of how safe it was for the passengers.

But most accidents that occur, uh, you know, say somebody’s going down the road and a deer comes out in front and they hit a deer, a lot of times they can replace the things that got broke, such as, you know, your hood, your fenders, or even your glass and stuff. Those things can be replaced and make the car drivable again.

Okay, let’s see if you can do this. How does electricity get used in a car? Okay, so electricity and cars can be used in many different ways [00:08:00] with the aspect of the internal combustion engine. It is used to power your things like your lights, your horn, your radio. And even the fans and stuff, your heating and air conditioning, and especially all the actual entertainment you have sitting in the back, riding down the road, watching the TV and stuff, that’s what powers it.

And for your electric vehicles, it also uses that power to actually provide the energy to the electric motors. They turn the wheels to allow you to actually drive the vehicle down the road. Mm-hmm. Where does the power come from? So whether it be an electric vehicle or an internal combustion vehicle?

Majority of the time it’ll initially start out in a battery, and the battery is just a cell that retains the power for you to either initially start your internal combustion engine or with your electric vehicles, where it provides all the power the whole time. And then once the internal combustion engine is started, it has something either called a generator.

We’re an alternator, which most modern vehicles from the, I would say [00:09:00] fifties on one, have alternators. That is what puts out the power to the system after it’s actually up and running, and then it acts very similar to a generator, but alternators are the more modern technology of creating the power from a rotating mass.

The alternator, basically, it has. A lot of copper coils in it, and then inside of that’ll be an armature. And as that spins, it creates essentially electromagnetic force to put power out. Okay, Mr. Dan, do people race in old fashioned cars? Yes, they do. And there are actually leagues out there for just the purpose of receiving the order vehicles still.

I don’t know any of the specific names of the classes or the organization’s off the top of my head, but there are plenty of ’em out there where they’ll still run, like they’ll order open wheel cars and even, I think they’ve even had some where they use some like the steam powered vehicles to race as well.

A lot of those things happen and even within, other than. Cars in the agricultural community, [00:10:00] people still take out their old tractors and things that are steam powered and they’ll do tractor pools and such like that using the old steam powered tractors as well as the old and things like that as well.

Has anyone whos driven an old fashioned race car ever won a race? I would say yes. Cause normally any of those races that occurred, there’s always gonna be a winner. Now, if those older vehicles are racing against newer cars, it’s definitely more difficult for them to win the race. But most of the times they have those races.

They’re racing against cars that are similar in power weight design. So that’s more of an even match for them to race against their competitors. Clio, before we move on, I wanna know what your definition of old fashioned is. Like. Very old cars. Well, how old is old? I don’t really know how to describe it.

It’s like a car that is like very old in years. [00:11:00] Do you have a specific year in mind? No, just any. Okay. Give us a yes of a year that you consider to be an old car. I don’t really know any years that there might have been like really old cars in. Well, the very first car was invented in the 18 hundreds, over a hundred years ago.

Over 120 years ago to be exact. Did they have any really old cars in the year 18, like 55? No, not that far back. The first cars came out in the late 18 hundreds, right around 18 96, 97, 99, and in that era, Okay, more modern cars. What we would consider post-war cars, post-World War I cars, that’s when you started to see things become more standardized, more normal.

Pedals were all in the same place, steering in the same place. Levers were all standardized, things like that. So that didn’t happen [00:12:00] until the later 1920s, early 1930s. That was the beginning of the more modern cars. But even those are considered now vintage and classic. Why did they call it post? Born World War One, correct.

There’s been several World Wars. The first one started in 1914 and ended in 1918, and the second one started in 19, we’ll call it 39, and ended in 1945. So there are two periods of post-war vehicles. The first is anything from basically 1919 to 1938, and then after. The second World War 1946 until basically the mid fifties, those are still considered post-war cars, and then it kind of goes on from there.

Then we enter what they call the Dulce Vida era. Then we enter the muscle car era, we enter the malaise era, and they go on and on from there. As we move up through the decades until today. Oh yeah. Thank you. Act to Dan. [00:13:00] Okay, Mr. Dan, I have two more questions left for you. And cars survive big fire due to the materials that cars are made out of.

Older cars would stand up much better to a fire than a modern day car because a lot of the older cars, and I’m talking. Post-war type era where they’re a lot heavier gauge steel and metal cars back then could potentially catch fire, and if it wasn’t set there and just left a burn for hours where it melted or weakened the metal, they could be rebuilt.

A lot of the modern cars, there’s a lot of newer materials such as the plastics, composite materials, and even s like the aluminum hollows on wheels under the heat. They melt a lot faster than the metal of the older vehicles would. So depending on the era of the vehicle, I would say determines and also determines on the level of the fire.

Because there were fires scout in California when they had the massive fires raging throughout. There were cars that were burnt down to where it looked like a, just a poly molten metal. Cuz [00:14:00] if a fire gets hot enough, it’ll melt metal. You wanna talk about EVs in there as well? What, what EVs? The electric vehicles, I would say it’s gonna be much more dangerous for the fact that all the wiring and stuff required for the power and everything within the system, once that melts, you’re gonna have no power to the vehicle.

So if you were to try to rebuild an ev, it would be a very difficult job, in my opinion, because the batteries themselves, once the fire starts, they can act as an actual accelerant to the fire, a fuel for the fire, and create the fire to burn for even longer, which is why. Modern fire departments are coming up with new methods of how to fight the fires when an electric vehicle catches fire.

So it’s called an Evie, right? Yeah. Evie is an abbreviation for electric vehicle. When you said, Evie, I thought you meant the Pokemon type. Nope, I’m not. I’m not knowledgeable with Pokemon. So if a car was parked in a building, And the building was [00:15:00] breaking down, would the car still survive? And like if everything collapsed on top of it, if it was an old car back then, would it have survived?

There is potential that the car could survive because if we’re gonna look at, say, You know, the older vehicles like the 1950s, 1960s vehicle had heavier metals, or even prior once to that. A lot of the buildings during that time were made from wood, so some of the wood as it gets older and gets rotted.

It’ll be less dense so it falling on the car could potentially like create some dents and things. But I have seen what people consider like barn fines or field fines and stuff like that, where buildings and stuff have collapsed onto them and they were able to restore them. And I’ve even seen pictures of field fines where a vehicle be sitting there and a tree grows up through its hood or something.

Could modern day cars survive it? [00:16:00] Some possibly could, depending on, like I said, the type of building. There’s a lot of modern buildings now that are built with steel and other metal components. So I would say if it was like the building, I planned to put it, it’s gonna be a steel I beam building. If it were to collapse.

I don’t think even the older vehicles would hold up very well to that because of the density of the steel and the weight of it. But it is possible if a newer car were in one of the older wooden buildings and it were to fall, it could potentially be salvageable. Okay. Thank you to that question. Here’s the last question I will be asking you.

Alright. Are there self-driving cars yet? That’s a bit of a tricky question because some ways yes, but it requires certain parameters for them to work on general highways and roads. Right now, no, because there’s not infrastructure in place to give the proper sensing, and for the vehicles, it’s a technology they’re working on.

Hopefully we will eventually get there [00:17:00] because. When I was your age and I would watch movies and TV shows and stuff, they had self-driving cars and stuff. By the year 2020 we’re past 2020. We still don’t exactly have that, but even the Jetson showed us like flying cars and stuff. That’s something people work on as well.

But we don’t yet have ’em. But hopefully by the time you’re my age, you’ll see that. Hmm. In the year 2049. I wanna ask if my dad would want to try to answer one of these questions. Sure, bud. What do you got for me? I’m letting you say, Dan, watch you see you’re smarting in a third grader. Fair enough. Can steering wheels like get dented if you’re driving and you get into a car accident, can the steering wheel get very badly damaged and bent?

That’s a question I want. I know. Well, it [00:18:00] really depends on the type of accident. In the old days, there were many steering wheels that were made from different materials, namely, let’s say wood, lighter metals, things like that. So they don’t have the same safety ratings that the modern pieces do, which means they were more prone to braking and bending, denting, things like that based on the type of accent, the cars themselves weren’t nearly as safe as they are today.

Steering wheels today have airbags. In them to try to protect you from hitting them with your body, which was one of the causes of them bending or breaking was the weight of your body and the force of your body hitting those steering wheels in an accident. Is it likely that a steering wheel today would dent or bend?

Probably not. It’d have to be pretty extreme for something like that to happen. It’d be a pretty nasty accident. So in the old days, yes. Today, not so much. Got it. Thank you for answering that. Questions you don’t have anymore. That’s it. Just 10? Mm-hmm. 11. I [00:19:00] had 11, but you answered the bonus. 11 questions. So what if we asked you a couple questions?

What if we turn the tables here and have Mr. Dan ask you some questions? Oh, Okay. I don’t, nothing about the subject. I’ll try to think of something pretty simple. Let’s see. Okay. What is your favorite car? I don’t really know the different types of cars, so I don’t really know which one to choose, but I would probably say the same type of car that my mom’s scar is like don’t what type that is.

Are we talking about the spaceship van? What? Your mom’s spaceship van. It’s a minivan. I know, but it sounds like a spaceship. One is running off the battery portion about the engine since it’s a hybrid. Are you? Well, I’m just gonna have to go with it. Speaking of your mom’s van, how’s this that is considered a hybrid?

Do you understand what that [00:20:00] means when they talk about cars? Cause we’ve spoken about internal combustion like an an electric car cause it runs on electricity. Yep. It also has a gas engine, which was what makes it hybrid, so it can run on both depending on the situation, and it allows you to have the reliability of the internal combustion engine if your batteries go dead.

Okay. You answered a question and I also answered a question for you. So, Clio, you’ve been coming to the racetrack since you were a baby. What, what do you think of that experience? What’s it like at the racetrack? So, first off, I like it because I get to see like it was the winner at the track and stuff, and I also get to see like friends and family and stuff.

But my favorite part is actually hearing the noises. Because it’s fun, like hearing the different car sounds, trying to memorize which sound is which one, it comes past [00:21:00] you. So I really like enjoying that and I like memorizing the different cars, like pass by like, oh, there’s a green car. Oh there’s a pink one.

Oh, there comes the green car again. Very nice. Can you pick out Mr. Dan’s car when he is out there on track or daddy’s car? I haven’t been to the track in a while, so I don’t really remember, but I feel like my dad’s is black. Cause black, black. You don’t say,

you always look out in the garage, then you would know what your dad’s car looks like. The one in the garage or outside of it? Well, depending on where he has parked for the day,

he has so many cars. How do I know which one is switch? I rookie numbers. He’s gotta increase those numbers. He gotta get up to the amount of cars that I got here at my place. Is it the one with like [00:22:00] one of does have that? Yes.

But I do not remember what your race car looks like, Mr. Dan. Well, it’s been a while since you’ve seen it. It’s got a lot more stickers and decals on it now than you when you saw it last. So hopefully you’ll make it out to one of our upcoming events and see it again. What’s the easiest way to remember a car as it goes by on the track?

Do you know? No, I just figure out its colors and what sounds it makes and try to memorize the label on the front of the car because every car has like this different label. I’m saying which brand it’s from. Very true. Which brands do you know? Clio? I forget. All I do is look at the logo. I don’t even read the words.

I’m just like, oh, there’s the logo. So what’s the logo? What’s the logo look like on mommy’s car? So I feel like it has like this oval shape [00:23:00] thing. It does. Does it look like wings? What never. You’ve never noticed? No. Next time you look at the fan pay attention, it looks like wings. They look like, like bird wings, basically.

I don’t know why the Chrysler logo is bird wings, but whatever. That makes no sense. Real quick, back on the way of identifying cars on track, Clio is as they go by, Most tracks have a ruled where you have to have a number on the side of the car. So example Mr. Judd in the club, and I had the same color car.

So without the numbers on the side, it would be difficult to tell which of us was going by. Consider, do you have, so on the Volkswagen it’s 8 0 8. Is that my dad’s car four here? Well, your dad has two Volkswagens or well a Volkswagen, a semi Volkswagen on the other since it’s Volkswagen powertrain. So how many Volkswagens does my dad even have?

Not gonna [00:24:00] get into that. Here. It’s an episode for another day. It’s like six, seven in parts. Yes, that’s for sure. Definitely. Mr. Dan, would you like to ask me another question? All right. I know this past summer we went to a little outing out near your house. And we got to see something other than race cars.

Do you remember what type of vehicles that was? That we saw Go-karts. They were a little bit bigger than Go-karts. They were really noisy. Monster trucks. Yep. So how did you like the Monster Trucks? I really liked that they were so colorful and they did like flips and stuff and I really liked it. I’m gonna throw this out there, Lou, anytime you have any curious ideas regarding cars and stuff like that, I know your father’s more than willing to answer those questions as well as for helping out.

Feel free to come out and we’ll even put a wrench in your hand and let you turn some wrenches with us. [00:25:00] Seriously. Sure. I’m gonna. I’m sure your father might prefer be one of my cars, but we can make that happen. Yay. But you gotta, you’re, you’re never too early to learn. Right. You’re never too early to, you know, change the motor oil on something that you have to teach me.

That’s right. That’s right. Well folks, that was an interesting round of questioning for Mountain Mandan and I, the more I think about this, the more it makes me wonder what we were like as kids, you know? What kind of questions did we have? I know we spent a lot of time in the garage under the hoods of cars, and it does remind me of something very, very important, which is, Make your kids part of your life, especially if you’re in the motor sports community, because they are the future.

They are. What’s keeping this going in the year 2049 when hopefully there still are race cars and organizations out there that allow them to go explore, drive, enjoy all the things that we’ve come to know. To [00:26:00] be normal in our corners and disciplines of the Motorsport world. So Clio, I can’t thank you enough for coming on the show and asking us some really tough questions and getting to know cars a little bit better.

And hopefully we’ll see a Trackside this year. You are very welcome. And I’d like to show on a little additional tidbit for the listeners out there when it comes to bringing the children involved into our sports and stuff for myself as a kid. Math initially was one of my weak points and fractions were the death of me as a child.

And if you bring a child into the garage and you’ve got your standard sockets sitting there seeing the numbers and actually being able to correlate the numbers to a physical size, that is what allowed me to learn my fractions as a kid, children, Clio’s age, and even younger, that are learning fractions.

In my opinion. That’s a great way to have your kid involved with what you’re doing. And learning at the same time. All right, Clio. Well, if you’re done, we can let you go. It’s almost bedtime. Anyway, [00:27:00] thank you for having me. Pleasure to see you, Clio. Pleasure to see you.

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call our text at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.[00:28:00]

For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of Fig Newton’s, gummy bears, and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Learn More

Clio’s curiosity knows no bounds. “How does an engine work?” she asks. Dan introduces her to the “suck, squeeze, bang, pop” cycle of internal combustion, breaking down each phase with clarity and enthusiasm. He even explains combustion and flashpoints, making the science behind engine power accessible and fun.

“Can cars survive crashes?” Clio wonders. Dan walks her through crash testing, safety ratings, and the repairability of vehicles post-accident. He highlights how older cars, built with heavier metals, might fare better in certain scenarios than their modern, plastic-laden counterparts.

Electricity gets its moment too. Dan explains how both internal combustion and electric vehicles use electricity – from powering lights and radios to driving motors. He breaks down the role of batteries, alternators, and copper coils, painting a vivid picture of how power flows through a car.

Clio wants to know if people still race old-fashioned cars. Dan confirms they do, from vintage open-wheelers to steam-powered tractors. She asks if those cars ever win races, and Dan assures her that in class-specific events, they absolutely do.

The conversation turns to fire safety. Dan explains how older cars, made of heavier metals, might survive fires better than modern ones. But EVs? Their batteries can act as accelerants, making fires harder to control – a challenge modern fire departments are actively tackling.

Clio’s final technical question: “Can cars survive a building collapse?” Dan says it depends – older cars in wooden buildings might survive, but steel-beam structures could crush even the toughest classics.

In a delightful twist, Clio asks her dad a bonus question: “Can steering wheels get dented in a crash?” He explains how older materials were more prone to damage and how modern steering wheels are designed with airbags and safety in mind.

Then Dan flips the script and asks Clio about her favorite car. She picks her mom’s hybrid minivan – because it sounds like a spaceship. Dan uses the moment to explain what a hybrid is, and Clio impresses everyone with her understanding.

She shares her favorite part of going to the racetrack: the sounds. She loves identifying cars by their colors and engine notes, and she’s even learning to recognize logos—though she admits she just looks at the shapes, not the words.

As the episode winds down, Dan and Clio reflect on the importance of involving kids in motorsports. Dan shares how working with tools helped him understand fractions as a child, and he encourages parents to bring their kids into the garage – not just to bond, but to learn.

Clio’s curiosity, humor, and sharp observations remind us that the next generation of car lovers is already here. And if this episode proves anything, it’s that even the most complex automotive concepts can be explained with a little patience, a lot of heart, and a whole lot of fun.

We want to thank Clio for coming up with these awesome questions and making us think about how we can boil them down and make understandable answers for up-and-coming vehicle enthusiasts to get excited about the things we’re most passionate about… cars! 

Remember… in order to keep our hobby and motorsports alive, get your kids involved as early as you can. They’re the next generation of Petrol-heads! 


Guest Co-Host: Daniel Stauffer

In case you missed it... be sure to check out the Break/Fix episode with our co-host.
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B/F: The Drive Thru #25

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In this episode of the Gran Touring Motorsports Podcast ‘The Drive Thru News’, hosts discuss various topics surrounding motorsports and automotive news. Sponsored by multiple organizations, this monthly news recap includes updates on General Motors, intriguing quotes from John DeLorean, and current challenges faced by GM, such as issues with EVs, hybrid attempts, and market responses. They also discuss several recalled vehicles, including some Ferrari cars for brake reservoir cap issues and Ford F-Series Super Duty trucks for wheels potentially falling off. Other automaker updates include the latest from Porsche, Hyundai, and Rivian, as well as Dodge’s new all-electric Charger Daytona SRT concept. Innovations in electric vehicles (EVs) from companies like Hyundai and Rivian were explored, along with insightful perspectives on future vehicle trends and regulatory changes, such as California banning new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. The podcast also offers entertaining segments on lost and found unusual cars, Florida man antics, and motorsports news, including Formula One updates and IMSA events. The episode wraps up with local car events listings and discussions on upcoming HPDE track events, all while seeking guest hosts for future episodes.

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Showcase: General Motors! 

A quote from “A Clear Day you can see GM” by J. Patrick Wright, dictated by John Z. DeLorean – in reference to GM’s corporate philosophy he says “GM is reluctant to pioneer in the auto industry, rather banking on letting others pioneer new markets and following them up with a bigger and more aggressive sales effort. The logical result of this, when I was there, was that GM was usually late in the market with new products, slow to respond to quick turns in the marketplace because it didn’t perceive them when they were happening, and the least effective in the automobile industry in its advertising programs.” (page 164) note: this book was written in the mid-1970s. 

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IMRRC C8.R IMSA Edition Sweepstakes

Don’t forget that our friends at the IMRRC are still in the process of raffling off A 2022 Corvette C8 IMSA-R Edition off, take the car or a cash option. We’ve seen the car in-person, and it’s quite the stunner. Yellow accents over gunmetal grey. Proceeds benefit the library/museum, and we’ll have those details in the show notes for anyone that wants to try their luck.  ... [READ MORE]

**All photos and articles are dynamically aggregated from the source; click on the image or link to be taken to the original article. GTM makes no claims to this material and is not responsible for any claims made by the original authors, publishers or their sponsoring organizations. All rights to original content remain with authors/publishers.


Automotive, EV & Car-Adjacent News

For a list of all the articles and events referenced on this episode check out the show notes below.

Domestics

EVs & Concepts

Formula One

Japanese & JDM

Lost & Found

Lowered Expectations

Motorsports

Rich People Thangs!

Stellantis

Tesla

VAG & Porsche

First details of Porsche's buy-in on Red Bull Revealed

Everything you need to know about the Hoonigan (Ken Block) 911

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Gran Touring Motor Sports Podcast Break Fix, where we’re always fixing the break into something motorsports related. The drive-through is GT M’s Monthly News episode, and is sponsored in part by organizations like H P D E junkie.com, garage riot, american muscle.com, hooked on driving and many others.

If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor of the drive-through, look no further than www.gt motorsports.org under about and then advertising and sponsorship. Thank you again to everyone that supports Grantor Motorsports, our podcast Break Fix and all the other services we provide. Welcome to drive through episode number 25.

This is our monthly recap where we’ve put together a well prepared and well organized menu of automotive motorsport and random car adjacent news. Now let’s pull up two. Window number one. For some automotive news, why? Why do you gotta lie to our audience like that? Brad? We are [00:01:00] well prepared, well organized in a well-oiled machine.

We are a Ferrari engine. Two seconds before implosion. Oh yes. It always runs best. Just before blowing up. Maybe that’s partially because it’s been super quiet around our media center this month. You know, all the parties are over. The anniversaries and celebrations have come to a close. I’m still finding confetti and glitter and like the weirdest places around here.

Thanks Izzy. Tha thanks. Thanks for that. I don’t know about you guys. I’m really starting to feel like we’re finally sitting back. We’re netflixing and chilling a little bit. You know, we’re watching everybody else, right? I’m not sure where we go next, right, Brad? Nah, that’s GM’s play. They always wait and react, but not ours.

So let’s get into it. Come on now. Touch up. We’re gonna showcase this month on General Motors. Thanks for bringing that up. And you know, I wanna start us off with a quote. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, and as you guys know from this month, I put out a recommended read on a clear day. You can see General Motors, which was written by Patrick [00:02:00] Wright and dictated by John DeLorean back in the seventies.

I found on page 1 64, something super interesting, something that I’ve been preaching about with respect to GM for a while. You know how we’ve talked about, they always seem to be behind, they always seem to be kind of waiting for what everybody else is gonna do. That was all conjecture. That was all speculation.

But as I’ve been reading this book, and I’m gonna read you this quote, I think it all comes full circle. So DeLorean says, General Motors is reluctant to pioneer in the auto industry, rather banking on letting others pioneer new markets and following them up with bigger and more aggressive sales efforts.

The logical result of this when I was there was that GM was usually late in the market with new products, slow to respond to quick turns in the marketplace because it didn’t perceive them when they were happening, and they are the least effective in the automobile industry in their advertising programs.

He wrote that in the seventies. I didn’t know this to be fact until I [00:03:00] just read it earlier this month as I’ve been reading this book and in my mind is blown 40 plus years later. This is so true. And I think they’re still following the same playbook. If anybody’s ever seen anything from General Motors and just followed them casually, they’ve known all along that this is true.

I mean, this guy just put it in black and white. Then he’s got real world experience from being at gm. I mean, we all knew it was never just put out there and written. Exactly. But it, it makes total sense. If you watch anything in General, motors is ever done, fits in line. This philosophy makes total sense.

Agreed. And it’s still happening to this day with the, I mean, what ev do they have really to compete with some of the ones that we’re gonna talk about later in the show and even their hybrid attempts have been lackluster. I mean, there’s just always kind of late to the game, late to the party like we’ve been talking about sitting back, watching everybody else except for the Corvette, which we’re also have the lyric.

Yes. The Joel Cola. I mean, how many of those do you see [00:04:00] on the road or in driveways compared to pre I and Teslas? They got a Hummer. GM’s got the Hummer. They were first to market with the Hummer. They’re coming out with the Silverado. But the F-150 lightnings already out. Is it because chips? Well, we’ll get to that too.

But there is something else that we missed if maybe this happened before we started the drive-through. I was trying to find a date for this article. There was a proposed rendering for a new Buick sports car. Anybody wanna guess what I’m talking about here? There’s a reason why it was missed. You just said Buick GM Sports car.

This car was never a sports car, though. It was a sports saloon. It was a touring car. It was a sports coupe, a GT car Back in the day, back in the eighties, this car was faster than the Corvette. A Buick Grand National. A sports car. Yeah. Is that a sports car? I mean, you gotta look at what else was being made at the time.

I mean, come on. [00:05:00] No, no. This is the eighties. This is like the 83, 84, 85, somewhere in there. Yep. Exactly. So yeah, you still had the C4 Corvette, you still had the Fierro. You know the Chave. You had some really Mustang Camaro. A lot of hot trash is what you had. A hundred percent. So there was an artist. Couple years ago that put together a rendering of what it would look like if Buick brought back the Grand National as a modern carb.

I mean, I’m all for a grand national, as long as it’s not a qv, which is what General Motors does, it feels like a Cadillac from the front. It’s a CTSV coop. Very much is. Yeah. Supposedly though, the artist took in 87 Grand National, started stretching it, moving it, doing things like that. It’s a good piece of Photoshop, but at the same token, there’s a lot of things that are just wrong with it.

It looks like a Chevy Lumina from the side. Hmm. And I only bring this car up first because I actually saw a Grand National on the road the other day was behind us, and I turned to my wife and I said, look at that thing. This car is super [00:06:00] badass coming up behind us. It was an old man and he was flying up on us, and she’s like, what is that?

And I said, that is the hottest muscle car of the late eighties. A total sleeper. Right? They only came in one color. They all look the same way, and it’s just got that whistle and that snarl and everything that’s cool about a Grand National that this new rendering, I don’t feel it, the new rendering in hot garbage, but the original is hot sauce.

A hundred percent. The original Grand National should be right up your alley. It only comes in black as sinister as fuck looking. It’s turbo. That screams Eric. That is a recipe for success. Yeah, exactly. But speaking of hot trash, anybody see that this new mandatory option on GM vehicles? Hold on, wait a minute.

Option mandatory. Is that like being voluntold? Uh uh. Basically, so you have the option for the OnStar subscription package that you have to pay $1,500 for. Wait, wait. Whether you continue the subscription or not. So is that built into the price or is that $1,500 every year? [00:07:00] That’s a great question because it almost sounded like you can’t cancel the thing.

It’s like Sirius xm, you can never get rid of it. They’re always trying to rope you back in. So it looks like they can decline the service, but they still have to pay for it. They start out with three years, so they paid for it for three years and they can’t cancel it at any point and get their money back.

So this means OnStar is $500 a year. It’s only $42 a month. Okay. That is absurd. What do they do again? So they’re the ones that do the emergency roadside assistance. You hit the little blue button. Oh yeah. That’s still a thing. I have aaa, so I don’t know. Okay. Does anybody else do this? There were a couple other people that had OnStar at one point.

Now I will say the funniest OnStar moment, and this is a nod to one of our previous episodes this month, is the Andy Pilgrim testing the z R one at ncm and the OnStar keeps calling him while he is on track. That is an absolute riot of a video to watch, and he’s so polite to them too. He’s like, no, I’m on a [00:08:00] racetrack.

We’re fine. But sir, it says you’ve had a high speed collision. No, I’m fine. I’m on a racetrack. It’s so good. I will probably never buy I, I definitely won’t ever buy a brand new GM product, but I don’t know that I’ll ever buy a GM product again. I have another reason for you to not buy a new GM product.

This left me just sour on all things right now. So everybody’s really excited about the zero six coming out, the bunch of spy photos. Up until recently, right around Pebble Beach time, they released the new zero six information. You could go to chevy.com right now and go look it up. They’re talking about pre-releases available summer of 22.

Yeah. Okay. Summer’s almost over folks. We’re heading into September now. We’ve only got a couple weeks left before it’s the fall. On the Chevrolet website, it says that the zero six is starting at $105,000. So let’s just talk about the zero six for a moment before I go into what upset me so much about this new vehicle.

How much does a normal [00:09:00] Corvette cost? $105,000. Seems absurd. So a normal Corvette, as we found out, somewhat optioned up a little bit with the performance package and the the 51 package and you know, all that stuff with the taxes and everything out the door, it’s close to 90. Wow. Okay then Sure. What’s another 15 grand upgrade that right.

But that’s the starting price for the zero six. Now you have to add the options on top of it. So it’s more likely a hundred twenty, a hundred twenty five, if not more. And here’s where I say this and I have the proof posted on Garage Riot. Earlier this week there was a letter from a dealership where somebody was putting in one of those deposits to get their new zero six.

And I just wanna read this to you guys. 2023 Corvette non-refundable deposit policy in order to place a 2023 Corvette zero six sold delivery order X Y XYZ dealership requires a $6,000 non-refundable deposit from the customer [00:10:00] once your order is accepted by Chevrolet. In the event that the customer does not take delivery, this fee will be utilized for restocking marketing and merchandising of said Corvette to the general public.

Furthermore, upon delivery of the 2023 Corvette two said customer, the $6,000 deposit will be applied as a down payment. Okay, cool. There’s a footnote. The vehicle will be sold, and this is in bold highlighted print for $90,000 over M S R P. So if Chevrolet’s base number is 105 at this particular dealership, and I’m not naming names cause I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus, we’re looking at a $200,000 Corvette with destination fees, tags, taxes, and everything else out the door.

Suddenly that bargain basement exotic car killer is no longer an a bargain basement car. It’s just an exotic. You’re basically buying a a Chevrolet exotic, which in that price range I would have any number of other cars than a zero six. And don’t forget, you have to add 1500 [00:11:00] bucks of OnStar on top of this 90,000 on top of the hundreds five.

Right? It’s true. It’s true, true. So we’re inching closer to 200 K every moment. Is the zero six worth $200,000? That’s the question. And I think you’re on the right track there, Brad. But the problem is when you compare it to the latest Ferrari or the latest Lamborghini, those cars are all half a million bucks.

So what are you comparing it to? Like we’ve always compared it to Porsche. The hurricanes are still in the two As and three s, I believe. As long as you’re not getting a special edition per ante or anything like that. Or, or whatever special additions they have. But what I’m saying is when the zero six is 130 grand, when you and you start comparing it to those other cars, yeah, it’s a deal.

It’s a bargain. You’re getting a a hell of a performance vehicle. But when it costs the same as those other vehicles, you have to look at it in a different lens. We’ll talk more about Lamborghini here in a little bit, but the latest, greatest last of the petrol Lamborghinis is clocking in at almost $600,000.

So to your point about [00:12:00] the special models in super costly, is that the new Kuta or is that the column LM four Masterpieces Theater 3000. The Evented Ultima or whatever, but we’ll talk about that more. Yeah. And those are just collector cars to be collector cars. You know what you could buy instead. That is apparently criminally undervalued as a collector car.

Oh, an 84 to 96 Chevy Corvette for 9,900 bucks. God. Or you could buy the new C8 for 200,000. The problem with the c4 is this a c4? Exactly. It’s great and awful at the same time. I mean, I’ve had the luxury of riding in a bunch of different ones on track from the base models to the Z one s and everything in between.

I don’t know. It’s a c4 and I know it’s the jumping off point for the c5. C5 is just kind of a bigger, heavier c4, and then the C6 is built on top of that. So it’s got three evolutions in it. But it’s just, I don’t know, I can’t see myself behind the wheel of a [00:13:00] c4. The only time I will ever buy a C4 is if the only other option is a c3.

Other things on this list, the Corvet Club coop, which put all the stuff from Nader aside, rear engine, rear mount, all that kind of stuff. I think the coves are cool, but it, it’s a certain type of collector that gets into the corvera market and really enjoys those cars because they were built for a while, but there’s in such a low numbers, so that’s a tough one.

There’s other weird stuff on this list. I think the one that stuck out at me the most is the one that probably Tanya appreciates and would enjoy the most. I could finally buy my Mercedes. That’s right. The three 80 s l I think those are great cars. They’re understated. If you can get rid of those US spec bumpers.

Oh man. You can have your lunch on those park benches. This is Rick’s Mercedes from Magnum. These were around forever. They had different engine packages. You don’t have to get a three 80. They had a two 80, they had a five 60. There’s a bunch of different versions of this, and I think they’re a [00:14:00] pretty handsome car.

227 horsepower. That’s a lot. That car probably doesn’t weigh that much. I don’t suspect it does, but for 20 grand, I think it’s a pretty good deal. All things considered. Or even under 15, apparently you can find them in the right color. Right. Well, that’ll help. Didn’t the Wicked Witch or whatever her name was?

Yes. Not the Wicked witch, but the evil Queen from once upon a time. Yeah. She drove one too. Mm-hmm. Burgundy. I remember of the cars on this list, I would drive the Lexus that does screen Brad. It is very nineties though. It’s such a round, kind of a porous looking car. Why get this Lexus SC 300, 400 with the front end of a fourth gen Supra when you could go get a real collector Toyota and get the Supra, because when you buy the Supra, you’re paying 50, 60 grand for a Supra.

The sc you’re paying five, six grand price. That $40,000, what? Oh, that’s in 1995. [00:15:00] Okay. Yes, it’s brand new. I don’t think the Supras are 40 grand anymore. I think they’re 140 grand now. Yeah, like everything else. Yeah. They, they were four, they were 40, 50 grand for like a ragged out piece of shit one 10 years ago.

I see the upside to it. Some of the SC 300 s, I believe they either came with a manual or you could do a manual swap on them. They came with a manual. It’s sustain, basically it’s the standard non turbo. Super drivetrain. Yeah, and, and it’s the same two, Jay-Z. So you throw a turbo on that thing and then suddenly you’re making 1200 horsepower in it.

Basically a two-door sedan. I would do the V8 though, just because by like Big Motors and I cannot lie. Oh. What I don’t agree with was at the bottom, any mid seventies full size American sedan. Alright, listeners, there’s some episodes coming about collector cars, especially about the Ma Blaise era. And I mean, most of these are junk.

There are some gems out there. I mean, please disagree with us. Convince me that there is something of value between 1974 when the [00:16:00] catalytic converters and the big bumpers were introduced to, you know, 1982. That list is gonna be pretty short. And then they show this picture of this giant Pontiac Bonneville and I’m like, that’s cool.

My dad’s boss used to have one of these. It never ran and it pretty much stayed in the office parking lot and it was the size of like a barge. It was just humongous. I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing, by all means, but it wouldn’t be my first choice for a collector. Since we’re talking about GMs, we have been ragging on Dodge Darts for over a year now.

And you know, we talk all the time with our guests, you know, what’s the ugliest car of all time? And we get the PT Cruisers and we get all sorts of fun stuff in there. And you know, there’s a car. It dawned on me because I saw one on the road the other day for the first time in a while that we haven’t talked about in, uh, quite a long time.

So I was wondering, have you been keeping up with the, uh, H H R market? No, I have not. But I did a little bit of research today and I will say, first of all, I had no idea that there’s a Chevy hhr.net message board enthusiast page. Of course there is. They [00:17:00] have a classified section. Of course they do. And in this classified section, they have cars for sale.

Oh. In these cars for sale, I found user c Jones with a Z 1993 selling. His 2009 H H R Ss with 94,000 miles for 10 grand. That is a criminally undervalued collector card. Wait, what? 94,000 miles? Yes. 10 grand. 94,000 miles. $10,000 or best offer. He’s open to negotiation. He knows what he has. People don’t love Bob.

Me, bro. I give you nothing. I don’t want it. Exactly. And this is as recent as August 18th. That’s a good deal. Well, it’s actually not a bad car. It’s all black blacked out wheels, black out paint. Black interior got the typical, it’s a 2009, so the interior’s a little ragged and stuff, but it’s got some performance mods and stuff like that.

Anybody looking for a performance car? Some of our members will tell you that the H H R and Cobalt SS are where it’s [00:18:00] at for front wheel drive performance. I’ve got one better for you. What’s that? Down in Texas, in Conroe Texas. Know that area well, you could snag a 2010 H H R Ls with 31,235 miles for only 8 9 99.

Yeah, but the LS is not the Ss. Hmm. The LS don’t have the turbo ORs, the supercharge, whatever. It doesn’t matter. Nobody’s buying these things. It’s all poop. The only people that are buying this H H R S S are people looking for an H H R S S. I don’t know what’s wrong with people. They’ll do buy these cars.

Tanya’s gonna save her pennies because I found something better. Oh my God, this is trash hot. Trash hot. This, I can see her driving around in, you know, taking her, oh, you can’t the streets, streets of dc No, you know, you can just enjoying this so much. I wanna get carjacked. That’s why. Do you think somebody would carjack you in this thing?

What? This is just turd. No, I love more than notes where it’s like, top pick for [00:19:00] Tanya. I’m like, What is this? Click it and and I literally was like, what the beep is this? And I, and I thought it was a joke below and behold, it is apparently not a joke that this was like some limited edition, legit production run.

One of a kind Star Wars livery number 24 NASCAR painted in Jeff Gordon shop. Yes. All of these things. 99 Chevy Monte Carlo in blue with like sparkles on it, which I guess are the stars in the universe of Star Wars. I mean, it’s got you and McGregor on the hood with his buddy Liam Meson there. Which, when was this done?

Because when was that movie with you and Gregor? Five years later. It was a long time ago. And a galaxy far, far away, right? Like did the timelines line up? It doesn’t matter. Did you see how much this thing is going for? No. Now I’m bothered by it. No, no, no, no. It’s not going for that price. It’s just listed at that price.

This is [00:20:00] one of those Jalopnik, good deal or crack pipe or whatever their series is that they have. No, they changed the name of it. Yeah. They had to be politically correct. Oh crap. Episode one came out in 1999. It is atrocious. That is legit livery for the year. Oh my gosh. How time flies? Let me ask you this.

Would you pay $24,000 for this car? No, I wouldn’t pay $24 for this car. I wouldn’t pay 24 cents. Let’s not be. Maybe I would pay 24 cents. I would pay 24 cents. I would drop a quarter. If they gave me the keys, I would drop a quarter too. I’d give, I let ’em keep the change on that. I’d drop ’em a quarter if it was a matchbox car, and then I’d turn around and I’d sell it for scrap milk.

No, no, no, no, no, no. This becomes a lemon’s car. Sorry. You got delivery. I mean, outside of the paint job, it’s just a 99 Monte Carlo, which people can correct me if I’m wrong. Wasn’t really much to write home about, so you are being way too kind. Holy shit. This [00:21:00] was probably one of the worst cars in history.

Wait, it started out as a already. Well optioned Z 34, 3 0.8 liter V6 with a four speed automatic come now it’s well optioned. 3.8 liter V6 with 200 horsepower. Well, switching gears, let’s talk about GM and Motorsports a little bit. There has been a push recently through, what is it? Project 91 and Track House Motorsports to get famous drivers from different disciplines to come run in America’s premiere racing series.

Known to us as nascar. Yeah, they already have. He already did. It was this past weekend. That’s right. Our latest victim was Kimmy Reichen. And how did he do? Yeah, how did he do not well, he got crashed out in the bus stop. I heard. I’ve read his report. He’s the iceman as he always will be. He didn’t say a whole lot.

It sounded like he crashed with his own teammate and excuses about how everybody went left and he didn’t. And I, I don’t know. It was just like, okay. There was all this [00:22:00] seesawing about where he was in terms of the pack. One minute he was eighth and then he was 28th and then he was 18th and I didn’t really understand what was going on.

So what I think happened is he was taking the airline into the bus stop staying far right. Everybody else was taking the NASCAR line, staying far left. And then when he started turning or not turning, basically because of your far right, you just kind of jerked the wheel a little bit. Everybody else kind of turned in on him and pushed him into the bus stop.

More than likely, I hope to see Kimmy out there running some more events. Maybe he’s only gonna do the road courses. Yeah, he was doing testing at B I r. Why? I don’t know. Cause the v i r and Watkins Quinn are not close to being the same track. Curious to see if he continues. I’d like to see him do some more.

I’d like to see some other people, I mean we saw this with Juan Pablo Montoya and a lot of other folks that transitioned over from other motor sports. I don’t want it to come off like, well I’m retired from the big stage, so let me go run nascar. It’s a difficult thing that they do. [00:23:00] Those cars are very, I, I don’t want to use the word primitive and have it come off sounding negative or derogatory cuz it’s not.

Those cars are a handful and we’re gonna learn about that more in an episode later on in the season where we talk to some folks about late models and what they’re like to drive and how they’re set up. They take some bravery, they take some strength to drive. It’s a lot different than the super computerized jet fighters of like a Formula One car.

So there is an adjustment there. But I like to see people move around. Some folks retire and choose other disciplines and it doesn’t work out. Kimmy’s still got a lot of life ahead of him as a driver, so who knows? Maybe he’ll end up in the uh, S R O or Imso pad one day. You know, we’ll get to see him out in a touring car or GT car.

And just outta curiosity, what is the connection to General Motors? He drives a Camaro. Okay. That isn’t a Camaro, but it’s got a Chevy engine. Does it have a Chevy engine or a Gibson engine? Well that’s still a Chevy at the end of the day, right? Maybe sort of. In spirit. Yes. Kind of sorta. [00:24:00] So we’re gonna wrap up our little segment here on gm.

It’s always, you know, just a challenge to talk about them. Like we said, you know, the news is slow coming out of General Motors. We’re not really sure what they’re up to or what’s coming next, but we’re gonna keep our eyes peel. If something comes across your desk or your ears and you wanna share it with us about General Motors, you know, be sure to reach out to us and let us know because we’re always interested to see what they’re up to.

That said, I wanna remind our listeners to not forget about our friends at the International Motor Racing Research Center up in Watkins Glen. Since we were just talking about the Glen, they are still in the process of raffling or is it waffling? What, what do we call it now on the internet? Raffling. I, I heard it was waffling now on Facebook or something like that.

No, that’s what General Motors does before they make a decision. Uh, well any rate, they have a sweepstakes for a 2022 Corvette, C eight IMSA R edition, or you can take a cash option. As always, Brad and I have seen this car in person. It is quite the stunner. It’s a [00:25:00] gun metal gray with these electric yellow accents.

It’s a really cool looking car. All the proceeds benefit the library. And the museum. So we’ll have all those details in our show notes. So if you want to try your luck and try to win the Corvette, you know, have at it. And again, it goes to a good cause and it’s a great group that we’ve been fortunate to work with over the last couple of years.

And before we move away from General Motors, I just wanna say that if you want to know what’s going on with General Motors next year and into the future, just look back at five years what everybody else is doing, and you’ll know what General Motors is up to. Touche, Brad. Touche. It’s time that we move on to Volkswagen Audi in Porsche News.

And first up in that category is Lamborghini, because for those of you that have forgotten, Lamborghini are actually a hundred year old Audi R eight chassis. Underneath it comes as no surprise when Lamborghini made the announcement that the inventor LP 7 84 UL is going to be the last of its kind. I exaggerate on the a hundred year old chassis, but let’s be [00:26:00] real.

The Evented door is built on a 2011 R eight, so that is now 12 years old going into next year as they’re selling these 20 twos and the remainder of 20 threes. The reason the ultimate is the last of its kind, it’s the last petrol powered V12 Lamborghini that’s gonna be sold. There’s all this waxing poetic when you read the articles about this particular car, and one thing that stuck out in me in particular, I highlighted from the article, but I thought it was actually just complete rubbish.

And the author goes, But how it looks, it’s valet fight club at any casino, merely seeing it instantly propels 12 year olds through three years of adolescence, pimples, pop pupils, dilate tendons, tatin and breathing gets so shallow that people fall into respiratory acidosis. It’s not beautiful. It’s startling.

Catch a glimpse of it when unprepared and your cerebral spinal fluid will boil off. And I’m like, oh my goodness. Talk about just a bunch of adjective soup. It’s the same freaking [00:27:00] inventor they’ve been making for 12 years. You look at it, I don’t see any difference from the one they started with to the one they made last year.

I mean, you guys can correct me if I’m wrong. The price goes up, the special little buttons and knobs and colors change and it makes more horsepower than the last one Whoopy do. It’s, it’s cool. I guess it’s an evented door, which personally, my favorite was the Mercy Lago, which was the predecessors of the invented door, whatever.

I think that guy was on something when he wrote that nonsense. He had a, he had a word quota he had to hit in the article. Yeah. He was trying to, to beat the most adjectives that he could fit into an article about a car. Do you win Guy? Thumbs up to you. Yeah. They’re only making 350 of these and who cares?

At the end of the day, it is for rich people. Yeah. It’s a rich people thing. Rich people doing rich people things. You know the type of clientele that’s gonna buy this car. And it’s not us average Joe’s, that’s for sure. I’ll buy the Lamborghini Evented door when it comes outta Walmart [00:28:00] for 94 cents. Mm-hmm.

Donut Media and, and Hogan and all those guys. They want get you up to speed. So they put out a video recently. Everything you need to know about the hooligan. Nine 11. I thought I was gonna hate it and then I don’t hate it, but I also haven’t like watched the 48 minute video about it. It’s a bit long for a Hannigan video.

They’ve been doing that recently. But I also feel like this goes in line with what we talked about with the Audi stuff. Does Ken Block need to tell us why nine 11 s are good? Is that what they’re doing for 40 to eight minutes? I mean, because I definitely won’t listen to it. If you’re in the nine 11 camp.

You know why? They’re awesome. They’ve been awesome for a long time. If you’re a nine 11 hater, well nothing’s changed. I mean, you gotta consider their audience. They’re catering to a bunch of people that probably don’t know Didley Squad and about an early nine 11, cuz that’s what this is. This isn’t a new nine new, you know, nine 11 of the last decade.

Yep. Just like the Audi and him going out in A U R Q and all that. People don’t know what that is. If they’re catering to the current demographics [00:29:00] of a certain age, right, they can put them out. The engines in the back. Yes. The engines in the back. It always has been. It’s cooled by air. What are you talking?

That’s magic. Cooled by air. Oh, goodness gracious. So they gotta make the videos that of course, you know, do that. They need to make the Cliff Notes video for everybody else. I would’ve gladly accepted it over 48 minutes, but I feel like it’s falling in line, right? We’re doing the Audi stuff now. We gotta do the Porsche stuff.

I just can’t wait for Ken Block to do his next Volkswagen video. It’ll probably be reviewing the mark. Nine G t I sure can’t wait for that Hogan front wheel Drive GTI to come out. It’ll be great. Yeah, not gonna happen. We have Tanner Faust if we want those types of videos. Meanwhile, Porsche has revealed its first details about its buy-in of the Red Bull Formula One team, since you two are their resident Formula One experts, how do you feel about this?

Sorry. Go ahead Brad. Great. Yeah, good job. Go teen. The yawn explains everything. My biggest question is, like we’ve been saying for a while, is [00:30:00] it gonna be a Porsche? There was all that back and forth about Volkswagen supplying the mgus, the new power plants and, and this and that. Now we’re not hearing that, but it’s gonna be an Audi.

Okay, well we’ve seen how that plays out. It’s a Volkswagen product that they put a different badge on and will go that way and make everybody believe that that’s the truth. The question is, is the first Porsche F1 car in 2026 really gonna be a Porsche? Isn’t it all badge engineering at this point? It’s all just advertising.

Porsche’s paying to put their name on somebody else’s Formula one car. Sort of like the LMD H cars too, right? Where the chassis are being built by Delara and they’re being built by Orca and Weber, and then people are slapping their badges on ’em and maybe supplying the power plant. So maybe that’s the way of the future.

Although for Porsche, it just seems out of character for them not to build a car from the ground up. And I don’t like that. I’d rather see them be car, motor, chassis, everything them than like, okay. I bought into 50% [00:31:00] Red Bull slapped some PORs sticker on the side. Ronna Honda Motor. Exactly. They’re doing the same thing that Aston Martin did.

I think with the now Aston Martin team, formerly forced India, it’s all cost cutting. The, the bean counters and accountants have gotten in the year of the executives and saying, yes, this is great. This will be wonderful for us, except we don’t wanna spend any money to do it, so make it happen. Other Porsche News, so there was an article about Porsche building a Real Life, Sally Carrera from the movie Cars, the animated film.

It’s cute. It is cute. It’s blue and it’s got some other like, interior features. It kind of harken to cartoon or whatever, but it’s a a, a newer nine 11, obviously. Wa wa Sally’s a 9 96. That’s all I’m saying. Sally’s a Carrera. It’s in her name, but she’s a nine. They’re all the same. They’re all nine elevens.

Yeah. But a 9 96 is a nine 11. Yes. Yes, you are correct. Yes. But okay. I also heard that this car sold at auction, so it’s only [00:32:00] one being built was built for I think like charity or whatever. Okay. So it was sold as like a charity event. Would you like to venture a guess as to how much it’s sold for at Sotheby’s?

A lot. Brad, what do you think? I know the answer, so I’m not going to guess. I know the answer too. I’m going to guess anyway. Well, let’s not keep our audience guessing. 3.6 million. Wow. Wow. Did they say which charity it benefited, or it just went to charity Air quotes? It went to Girls Inc. And the United Nations Refugee Agency.

That’s awesome. That’s good. That’s really good. Which of the directors is gonna be driving it? I dunno. My bigger question is if you dive into several articles that have been posted about this car, I’m very curious, what does the Ccha button do on the steering column? I believe nothing. It’s odd to do that because that wasn’t her signature thing.

Right. But it is a [00:33:00] reference to the movie. So it was just they were trying to do something fun. I will say that I did appreciate the tattoo that they put on the tail when it comes up, just like she had that she was hiding in the movie. I thought that was cute. That was a great little nod to the film. And if you were wondering why it randomly came out this long from when the movie aired is, this is actually the 20th anniversary of this car because it was actually created.

Earlier than the movie came out. Like in 2002 was the first time this was penned on paper and she was actually created. So this is her 20th anniversary. Suddenly I feel super old God, she’s an adult now. Little Sally’s all grown up. Well, I guess it’s time that we talk a little bit more about the rest of lower sate.

Do we have any news about BMW or Mercedes? Nothing good. What? We’ve got a teaser for the Lost and Found section. Oh, apparently BMWs and Mercedes models are trending higher in the used car market for collectors, [00:34:00] thanks to millennials and young kids buying ’em up. So there’s the BMW M three, the Mercedes Benz 500 E, the Bmwm five from 88, the Mercedes-Benz five 60 S E C, and then the BMW 2,800 Cs.

Younger people are buying these cars up. I guess these are the makes and models that they grew up watching as they were young whipper snappers and they couldn’t afford ’em at the time. Wait a second. What’d I, what’d I say? Hold the phone. So the BMW 2,800 is $121,000 and it was $15,000 in 2012. Suddenly these.

People can afford it. Now, who are these people? Trust fund children. Apparently Instagram famous and YouTube famous. And they’ve got more money than they know what to do with. Apparently I don’t see those people buying these BMWs. I think this article is not geared towards them. I hate to say it this way, but I see the boomers buying these cars still.

I have no interest in any of these. I have actually lost interest in the E 30 M [00:35:00] three because of all the nonsense that we’ve seen. And bring a trailer. It’s an E 30. It’s an E 30 with a smaller engine to boot. It’s not even, I would rather have a base model six cylinder E 30, and go put flares on it and run the hell out of it and have at least a motor that makes some torque rather than that four banger.

And I know it’s sacrilege to change an early M three and all this kind of stuff, but you can build an M three for cheaper than what the M three is worth. But I’m not attracted to any of these cars. And this actually contradicts that other list that we were just looking at, that Mercedes three 80 sl, the five 60 sl.

Either the Cooper, the convertible, didn’t make this list and people are saying, Hey, that’s an undervalued collector car that you should be targeting. So Haggerty’s putting out these numbers, but I think their definition of the millennials, maybe they got their dates wrong or something, but. We straddle the line.

Right. They call azals sometimes cause we’re sort of Gen Xers, but sort of millennials, but we’re not. We’re in this sort of lost generation. I don’t know about you guys. Is there any attraction to these five cars that they [00:36:00] listed? No. The 500 E for me, yes, but the rest of ’em not really. No. That 500 E is so just blase though, right?

It’s such a carryover from the eighties. Yeah. If someone said, pick a car off this list, so not withstanding anything else, I would pick the E 30. Yes. The M three, excuse me. I would pick the M three. Yes, of course. AKA E 30 out of this list. Done. Where’s the one 90 E? 2.3 16 Val. That’s what I’m looking for.

Right. I would take that overall with these a hundred percent. I’d rather have the Benz than the M three at the end of the day. Oh yeah. I would take the one 90 E. Yeah, I would take that. Like there’s a lot of other cars I would pick before I pick these that are either in the same range or newer. These two Mercedes they listed here, they’re like the saloon old people, Mercedes and, and they’re just boring.

Just, ugh. If I was to buy a Mercedes right now, it would be one of my old time favorites, which is like the late nineties, early two thousands cl, [00:37:00] you know the big giant? Yeah. Coop those cars with the v12, the CL 600. Those cars were amazing to me. Yeah, you don’t see too many of ’em. You never see ’em on the road anymore.

But those cars were amazing to me and to go along with that, as much as I appreciate the E 28, M five, it’s so just compared to the, the E 39 again, I would pick the later M five over this. I would have more fun with it. You know, we always joke all the time that the E 39 is like the chassis that was hand built by God, but even there, what about the seven series B M W that the transporter had?

Again, another sort of underappreciated big saloon. I pick it over any of these. I’m not gonna spend a hundred grand on a on an M five. That’s insane. I’ll go buy a new M five for a hundred grand. I don’t believe the numbers here, but it is what it is. Still Haggerty’s making money somewhere. They’re keeping track of the market.

Basically. You can use Haggerty and bring a trailer as your reference point. We do that a lot on the, what should I buy episodes where they sort of give [00:38:00] us the high water mark in terms of where the market is and how cars have sold and what their, the quote unquote index is for the ve the collector vehicles.

Yeah. The market is just absurd. Speaking of absurd, what is this about a subscription model for heated seats? What the hell is BMW thinking? What is wrong with those people? Well, they’re thinking what GM is thinking. It’s a mandatory option, right? It’s not just BMW or gm. Toyota is also on this wagon charging you $8 a month for remote start, which used to be free What?

Uhhuh. So no wonder the prices of the older cars are going up in the long run. It’s cheaper to pay a million dollars for one of those cars than to be nickel and dimed with monthly fees. To have remote start and I want my window to go down, I’m gonna pay $5 a month. This is a Spirit Airlines, blah. They’re following the microtransactions from the video game industry.

Yep. Absurd. Yep. And your cell phones. All your Google Play and Apple Play and all that stuff. Now, if I can pay $5 to unlock a new delivery, Now you got my intention, but that’s not gonna happen. [00:39:00] Wasn’t BMW talking about the paint that you could change from within the car because they were using that digital skin and it could be black or it could be white and all that.

And that was concept stuff at like a CES show or something. But yes, some, I think it was bmw, some paint technology. Yeah. But that’s something you could pay for to say, Hey, I wanna change the color of my car and it costs 20 bucks and boom, it’s done. Yeah, no, it doesn’t cost 20 bucks. Cuz here’s the thing they wanna do.

What BMW is doing or allegedly going to do, is basically, oh, $18 a month for heated seats. Well what does that mean? That means your car comes with heated seats. So you’ve base model bought all the features Yep. That you possibly could. So now what are you paying a higher base price? And then on top of that, get to be like, oh, this month I wanna pay for heated seats because then that’s some crap.

Because now my. $50,000. BMW costs $80,000, and then I gotta go put subscription fees on top of that. How does this work? Because Yes. Then Brad, to your point, for $80,000, I can go get that old N three. [00:40:00] Yeah. And I don’t have to pay $15 a month, $18 a month for heated seats. It doesn’t have it at all. So I see it both ways.

From a manufacturing perspective, I agree with the notion that all the cars should come with all the options, because then there’s less variability on the production line. All cars come with heated seats done full stop. To Brad’s point, they’re trying to monetize this, they’re trying to gamify this. It’s all the in-app transactions and all that kind of stuff.

But I do see it the other way from the consumer perspective. I only want heated seats three months out of the year when it’s cold in the place where I live, that happens to be cold. Or I live in Arizona where it never gets cold. My car has heated seats, but I don’t need them, so why pay extra for them? To your point, Tanya, that cost is already baked in.

They’re gonna push that onto the consumer anyway. They’re saving money on one end. They’re sort of robbing Peter to pay Paul at the same time. What happens with the warranty policy at that point? Did it break while you were paying for the subscription [00:41:00] or not? If it was broken and you weren’t paying for it and you activated it and it suddenly didn’t work.

Now do we have all these microtransaction warranties as well? Like H how does this work from an operations maintenance perspective? What happens when the computer controlling the thing, your subscription breaks and you pay for it and it doesn’t turn on? How much does that cost to fix and who’s responsible for it?

Yeah, that’s the other problem. The planned obsolescence in the technology. I see that with my Jeep all the time. My Jeep had, you know, the cellular, and you saw the articles years ago. Oh, you can hack it. Well, guess what? It’s secure now through obscurity because 3G is dead. So there’s no way to get into it, but there lies the problem.

So are all these BMWs, they’re coming with 4g, are they coming with 5g, say tomorrow, Verizon, T-Mobile and everybody else, the consortium gets together and says six G is here and all those other protocols are dead. Granted, that’s the wave of the magic wand to make that happen and, and that’s fantasy and not reality, but let’s just say phased [00:42:00] out over the life of that car because people are keeping cars longer over 10 years.

It is plausible to say that the technology necessary to maintain that subscription to your point, will be phased out. So now you’re left with a basically base model car that can’t do anything other than just drive around. And how do you turn around and sell that to somebody? What’s the the aftermarket car value on that?

Oh, I got this car with all these features that don’t work. What if you’re late on making payments? Hey, I’m gonna sell you my bmw, but I haven’t made my heated seat payment for the last six months. So the heated seats don’t work unless you, you bring that back up to current. That’s the fear with the Teslas too, where all those models and those payouts and being able to push the updates over the air and all that.

I mean, it’s a scary reality when now the car companies can basically brick you at any point and leave you sitting there unable to go to work and make the money to pay that subscription fee. We’ve gotten to the point now where there’s just too many subscription fees. Everybody’s got one. It’s all either, to your point, the Apple model, the Netflix model or, or the [00:43:00] Spirit Airlines model.

This is a obscene, like this shouldn’t be happening in the car world. You either buy the option or you don’t, or all cars comes with the options or they don’t. I don’t like it, but yeah, I’m tired of B M W and Mercedes. What’s next? I know, right? Well, what’s next is our friends over at STIs. Ooh, this is Eric’s investment strategy.

Oh, buy diesel cars and then when they get in trouble with the US government, you make a ton of money off of them. It’s worked out well for you, hasn’t it? You know, lightning strikes over and over again. Apparently. I love diesel. I’m not, I’m just gonna flat out say it. There is nothing like the power and the ability and just everything that diesel gives you, right?

Everybody says, oh, diesels are so dirty. This and this. The motor is not the dirty part. It’s the fuel that we’re running through it. No, it’s the motor. It’s the motor that’s doing incomplete combustion. That’s the dirty part. Because you get incomplete combustion. You get soot that comes up outta the tailpipe, the black stuff, the smokescreen that I love.

But nonetheless, that’s [00:44:00] the dirty part, says one diesel owner to the other. Yes. I still think you can run cleaner fuels through a diesel motor without making major modifications to the diesel. So some of it is the fuel diesel itself is pretty nasty stuff. They’ve already gone to ultra low sulfur diesel, this, that, and the other, and they’re constantly trying to push the, the limits down on what are the pollutants in the fuel.

There’s only so much they can do without making they cost even more. That’s true. But diesel engines can also run on propane and hydrogen and other. Types of fuels. There’s alternative fuels that can be run through a diesel motor with minimal modification like vegetable oil, like that sounds crazy.

You’re not just gonna be like, I’m gonna roll up and put hydrogen in my diesel motor when there’s no way to safely inject the hydrogen. I wanna know when Eric does the vegetable oil conversion, the bio oil or the biodiesel, there you go. His cheap and he drives up to the Chinese restaurant and gets his free oil.

A [00:45:00] hundred percent you to dump in there a hundred percent. I would do it if I had a place to to get it. No, like McDonald’s french fries going down down the road. Yeah, it smells good. Makes me hungry. The reason I bring it up is because Cummins is coming to the table saying that they’re gonna build agnostic engines.

They’re using base diesel blocks and crank cases and everything else, and they’re changing the cylinder heads and making ’em so you can swap between fuels. Some of ’em just to go from diesel to propane as an example. It’s an add-on. To go from diesel to hydrogen is a different head to your point, Tanya, how do you inject it?

The piston bottom end is always gonna be the same. It’s an internal combustion engine. How do you take propane and propane accessories and then put it into another tank like it’s not a liquid like that. It’s not like diesel and gasoline just sloshing around. It’s pressurized multiple tanks. Yes, that’s a complete redesign of a car.

You just can’t be like, oh, I have my golf diesel, and suddenly converted it to propane with a snap of my finger. I just roll up to the propane tank. True. And oh, I changed my cylinder head and it works. It very well might be possible, but [00:46:00] it’s a whole new car. It’s a whole new design. You don’t have to transfer the gas from one tank to the other.

You go to Home Depot, you get yourself a bunch of blue rhinos. And you lift it up and when one is empty, you take it out, you take it back, you exchange it for another tank, and then you get more fuel. It’s, it’s simple. It’s just like that. Problem solved. Well done, Brad. It’s cheaper than buying gasoline. And while you’re there, you can get your mulch and you can get your.

Your Tesla replacement parts. We have solved all the problems. Thank you. He just described what Fiat was doing 25 years ago with their little propane powered vehicles. So it does a hundred percent. Make sense? So let’s go. Let’s bring this back to the original. Yes, yes. You know, topic. Eric owns a diesel Jeep and Jeep and Rams, and St.

Anis Fiat, who whatever they are this week, are in trouble with the US government for cheating diesel emissions because haha, the only way to get diesels to pass emissions is to cheat. And I’m not gonna see a dime of it. I think it’s all, again, a cover up for the E C U manufacturer because [00:47:00] it has been the lowest common denominator across all of these manufacturers that have been caught, quote unquote.

It’s Bosch, isn’t it? Yeah. Hey, I’m not saying it out loud. You did. I mean, I told you a long time ago, BOS. Bosch did it all. Hey guys, we’ve got this program. It works wonderfully. You guys should use it and like, okay, we’ll do it. I mean, I’m not gonna deny that there’s a Bosch computer in my Jeep because my Jeep is a Mercedes masquerading with a Jeep badge on it.

So it’s all good. Right? There is that, and people will argue one way or the other, but at the end of the day, that is the common denominator. All of the ECUs were sourced from one manufacturer. It’s like the us it’s AC Delco or whatever. That’s supplying the parts to these different manufacturers using a reference to gm.

Yet again, our our showcase this month. It’s a shame. I feel like there’s undue pressure on the diesel manufacturers, and I guess, like I said, Cummins is coming to the table with a solution that they’ve been toying with for like 20 years now. This agnostic engine, which can run multi fuel. I [00:48:00] still think the answer is a diesel electric hybrid.

I think hybrids are the answer, not full. Ev. We’re gonna get more into EVs in a little bit here. Diesels just getting such a bad wrap. I just wish there was a better alternative at the moment. Yeah, and I don’t understand why they’re attacking the diesel consumer when they should be going after the big diesel vehicles.

I think there’s things that they should do. That’s a very thoughtful statement there, because I’ve been saying for years that we’re getting punished like Tanya, he’s got a 1.9 liter diesel. How much can she possibly be admitting compared to the 15 liter Volvo? Kenworth Peter built, that’s next door. Her going, you know, down the highway all day long, belching black smoke.

That was a good impression of the engine breaking. Thank you. I mean, that’s gotta be like equivalent to 50 of your Volkswagen. There’s just, there’s no way. But they seem to be untouchable. You cannot touch the big rigs, you can’t touch the ambulance because they move America. And if you didn’t have [00:49:00] them, what would happen?

We’d go and move everything with the intricate train system that we have. Yes. Yes. The, the train system, if you can make efficient and clean burning trains and then you run them to the different train stations and then you use electric vehicles to get the shit off the trains and take them to their various destinations.

Speaking of trains, just a tangent real quick. Germany has just inaugurated its first hydrogen train. Woo. All right. There’s your alternative clean energy train. Is it using a diesel lower end? Is it called the The, the Hindenberg? No, it’s called the Heidelberg. They call it the Heidelberg. The Heisenberg.

There’s a lot of good ideas out there. I mean, I’ve heard things coming from some folks that we’ve interviewed, and these episodes are gonna come later where they’re working on sparkless gasoline engines, which I jokingly said, well, isn’t that just the diesel? And the designer said Yes. As a matter of fact, it is.

It’s a diesel that runs on gas. Again, the answer seems to be diesel without saying it right. We need to find a new [00:50:00] way to reconstruct that power plant in such a way that is socially, politically, and environmentally acceptable. The problem also is that it’s low hanging fruit to go after passenger vehicles, and it’s probably much more difficult to do it on the larger scale.

That is a peterbuilt, and so that’s why the focus is on one side versus the other. But you have the electric Tesla tractor trailer coming, right? Yeah. That’s been coming for the last 10 years. It’s, it’s coming next year. Brad, how’s that a hundred dollars working out for you? Uh, it has made me zero return.

Any doge? Nope. I didn’t get any Doge for it. Well, there is some other STIs news out there that I found quite amusing since our showcase this month was gm. You know, we joked many times about all the different recalls for the ca eight Corvette issues with the breaks, the funk was popping open. Right. Brad, you talked about all sorts of stuff.

Yep. Guess what? Ferrari is recalling pretty much every car they’ve ever made for the last 17 years. So silly Over what? Tanya? The brake [00:51:00] reservoir cap. Mm-hmm. The brake fluid reservoir cap. People are in a panic over this, let me tell you. Like, okay. Yeah. Cool. They used the same one for the last Good For them.

It’s a fiat part from a panda. Oh, no wonder it lasted that long. Apparently it’s missing like a breather hole or something like that. And it, it causes issues in the master cylinder. But the way I looked at it, and the reason I found it amusing is they’re recalling all these cars that don’t get driven anyway.

So the likelihood of this posing a problem to me was. It’s sort of just irrelevant. How many of the cars they catch fire did they recall? Those are only Formula One cars. On the brighter side of Dodge News, we talked many months ago about the CEOs coming down from on high and flicking on and off the lights and saying, all right, folks, party’s over.

It’s time to go home. Take your challengers and your chargers anywhere you want, but you can’t stay here. They have finally released outside of [00:52:00] the spy videos and teasers. We got six months or so ago. The new. All electric Dodge Charger, Daytona, s r t concept. What do we think? Well, I have a theory on Dodge Charger drivers, uh, I think I shared at another time, so I’m not really that excited to have more of these on the road.

They drive like shit. Not that the car drives like shit, that the drivers drive them like ass hats down the road. True, true. It’s missing the big Wang. I mean, it’s okay. It looks very much like the current one, right? You can’t tell there’s a giant hood scoop on it, like hood vent thing. Yeah, I think that’s really cool.

That’s a front. Spoiler. That is awesome. What are you talking about? Oh that is okay. That’s some Ferrari technology right there where the air pushes the hood down by going basically through where the grill used to be, creating that pressure center there. Okay. They did a really creative thing with the front grill.

Yeah. By doing that I think. And why don’t more car manufacturers that are making EVs that don’t need a front [00:53:00] grill, why don’t they take more chances and do stuff like this? Cause that looks really awesome. You are reading my mind man. I like the fact that they took the current charger, they updated it and then they added cool stuff like this and didn’t make it look like a spaceship and call it a charger.

Yeah, I’ll give them that. No, the more I look at it, the more I want. One, I think it’s aggressive. I think it still brings that muscle car feel to the market, even though it’s gonna be an ev and if I remember, the power numbers are pretty staggering. Well yeah, of course it’s gonna make like the equivalent of 9 million horsepower and it’s gonna get like one mile of range because it’s gonna like burn rubber.

Use all the electrical power at once and then you’re gonna be done. Because more power dodge, one mile of range is four pools down the quarter mile. There you go. That’s halt. Needs to do. The first official specification was makes more power than a hell cat. Full stop. Then if you continue to read the article, they’re saying it’s gonna have an 800 volt electrical architecture.

They’ve [00:54:00] called this the Banshee, which I think is a weird throwback to the Pontiac days. Again, going back to gm, but they’re saying it’s equivalent to 807 horsepower, and it’ll be all-wheel drive. So you can actually put the power to the ground. So like I said, 9 million horsepower, but come on, four wheel burnouts with no sound other than the tires screaming for mercy.

Come on. You mean screaming like a banshee? Yes. Hello. Why does it have to be all wheel drive? How the hell else is it gonna put down that 900 horsepower they have d r s on this. Did you notice? They got the curves. When is Dodge entering into the Formula One arena? They have a push to pass button called the Power Shot and it will give you a temporary power boost.

So it’s Kors. I thought the power shot was something else. Well, you know, hey it is Dodge after all. I do wanna see the race between this and the Tacan and the e-tron and some of the other ones. Like I, you know, we’re all tired of those Tesla [00:55:00] shootouts against ice powered cars that’s over with. But I would love to see this go toe to toe.

You know, maybe get it out on v i r and see how it does in a grand chorus hot lap type of situation. STIs, we have a driver for you if you decide to do that. Hundred percent. I wanna know how much this car is gonna cost actually. Cause I’m actually, I’m really interested. I’m gonna say looking at current trends, looking at the price of other EVs, if they wanna be competitive inflation, everything else, it’s gonna be a hundred thousand dollars.

Yeah. What are the chances? It’s a subscription model and you have to pay $5 a month to get the other 200 horsepower over X, y, Z number. So that’s how the red key works. It’s like an extra subscription. Yeah, you gotta, you gotta subscribe. I mean, that’s not bad. It still leaves you with 600, but that’s, that’s more than enough to get you into trouble.

Yeah. Well, we need to move on and talk about the rest of the domestics. Why. Yeah. Right. That leaves us with Ford this month. And normally we would tell you, this is brought to you in part by [00:56:00] American muscle.com, your number one source for Ford, GM and Mopar Parts. But we actually get to say farewell to American Muscle this month.

They’ve been with us for a little bit over a year now. If you are interested in replacing them as a sponsor on the drive-through, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. So thank you American muscle for everything you’ve done over the last year. And if you are a Chevy Ford or Mopar enthusiast, be sure to check out their site.

You know, who will not be sponsoring us STIs because they’re shelling out millions of dollars to the US government to pay for the Jeep scandal. Yeah, yeah. To pay for the the diesel scandal. So we were just talking about recalls. I hear there’s another one at Ford. It’s something minor. Really? You know, on the scale of your car, catching on fire to your brake fluid cap, not having a breather, pulling it, you know, and the wheels could fall off.

The wheels on the, the wheels on the Ford go round and not anymore. Wait, where did the wheel on the Ford go? It’s, it’s next to me. The [00:57:00] wheels on the Ford fall. Off, off, off, off, off, off. So which vehicles are subject to this particular recall? Every Ford made since 2005. That’s next week’s recall, but specifically the 21 F-Series.

Super Duty. Ooh, those are big trucks for a wheel to fall off. I think if your wheel falls off those, you’re in deep duty because you’re probably doing something really heavy duty like hauling mulch with your dually. Four 50 pulling a utility trailer with a lawnmower on it. You’re towing a piata to Summit point, you know?

Yeah. But you got your Harley Davidson in the bed, Ford’s up to shenanigans. What shenanigans would those be? Well, you know, we all know that EVs are expensive and the federal government for quite a long time now, has been providing consumers with a $7,500 tax credit. If you buy an EV or a hybrid, there are some asterisks and disclaimers in that, and it needs to be [00:58:00] an EV or a hybrid built in the United States.

So some of the vehicles that are built in Japan and Korea and import it over don’t count. But if it’s a Toyota or a Volkswagen, you know, any of the big three built here, you can apply for that $7,500 credit after you buy the vehicle. However, Ford has said, They are hiking EV prices by $8,500, which basically negates the tax credit all together.

So it’s not just a Ford thing, everybody is hiking their prices, citing inflation, it’s costing us more to do this X, Y, z, blah blah, blah and selling this, blah, blah, blah. But then at the same time, everybody’s having record sales and, and record profits and, and shit like that. It’s funny how all that shit works.

Yeah, I see it this way. Supporting sales teams where you lose volume, you make up for, by increasing the price. So you kind of have to look at the relationship between the number of vehicles sold versus their price tag. You know, supply and demand. It’s basic economics. Right. And I think right [00:59:00] now people are keeping their cars longer.

Yeah. There’s less cars being sold. There’s also less cars being sold per brand because like I’ve said before, we have so many boutique manufacturers. Now think about it. Tesla was the newest kid on the block. It was always the same old Volkswagen and Toyota and Honda and GM and so on, on the line. But now we have Tesla and then you have Lucid and you have Rivian and you have all these other companies that are cropping up and they’re taking another slice out of the pie, which means Ford’s volume numbers are going down.

So to compensate for that, we need to raise the price cause we’re selling less and they have certain quotas that they need to meet. They’re arbitrary. Uh, you know, God knows it’s probably related to somebody’s bonus or their paycheck or whatever. I get it. The factory workers, the people on the floor, They never see an ounce of this $8,500 per car that Ford is tacking onto the vehicles as they get purchased.

Not to mention what we talked about earlier with that Corvette where they’re tacking on $90,000 [01:00:00] over sticker. I mean, that’s all dealer inflation and, and all that kind of craziness. Unfortunately, the trickle down economics doesn’t work in the automotive industry in the way we would like it to. It’s just a mess until somebody buys somebody out and then they merge and then volume goes back up again and prices will hopefully come down.

But the reality is we never see the price of anything come down anymore. But I think we’re due for a course correction. And you just said these other car manufacturers, these other electrics are eating into Ford’s sales. What’s the best way for Ford to start making more sales? Let’s increase the price that really works.

Uhhuh. That’ll help. Yeah, that’ll bring the consumers in right away. I wanna pay $50,000 for that Mercury saveable wagon, not $5,000. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Next up, I’ll bring a trailer. Let the madness continue. Apparently they are going to build a production version of an experimental car, of which only 30 are going to be built, of which the price tag.

We thought this Corvette was steep. This thing is going to [01:01:00] be $209,995. Whoa. What is it? Is it four gt And you have to provide a donor car to even get this build. What? The GT 500? Code red making 1300 horsepower. It’s a code. Nah, for me, dog. It’s a code brown when this person’s leaving cars and coffee and then it’s a code red after they murder people.

I don’t know what to think of this. So it’s like Ford’s doing its own singer thing now. Like what is this? It’s basically not a street legal car. So it’s like a drag car, but in a street skin. Like we want it to look like a street car, but it’s not street legal. But we wanna go as fast as we can in a straight line.

And it’s not Ford that’s selling it, it’s Shelby. So Shelby American is putting this package together, all right? For, was it 300 grand, 200 grand, whatever? 209. 209,000. Plus the donor car, which begs the question, buy a fox body, put an LS in [01:02:00] it, two massive turbos. Make 2000 horsepower. You’re all in it for what?

Half of that at most, right? But it says you need a donor car. It doesn’t say what donor car. Ooh, so can I bring a Kia Rio and then you give me 1300 horsepower cheesy 500. Cause that’s, I mean, that’s a, it’s an even trade right there. I just don’t see it. If you’re gonna build a drag car, there’s plenty of F body Chevys, plenty of fox bodies, plenty of just Vegas, like whatever, like the classic shit boxes that you pick up and you turn into drag cars with massive amounts of horsepower, mostly all powered by GM LS engines for 210 grand.

Let’s just round up. You’re gonna have a lot of money left over, even if you build one yourself or buy somebody else’s car. But you’re still forgetting the 80 grand you gotta pay for the donor car. So it’s $300,000. So, ah, forget it. Would you pay $300,000 for a Mustang? No. No, because that’s essentially all it is.

No, it’s a high horsepower [01:03:00] Mustang. No, cuz you can’t even drop drive this thing anywhere. You can’t even go to the cars and coffee and try to have vehicular manslaughter on your record because it’s not street legal. So what’s it good for? What? It’s not even street legal. Oh my god. No. So what’s it good for?

And then Brad, you’re forgetting, then you have to buy F four 50 Super duty duly where the wheels fall off to be able to trailer this thing to the drag strip to run it for six seconds. How much is an F? Four 50. A hundred something grand. And then you’re gonna buy a trailer. Yep. So you, so you’re, you’re in it for like half a mill.

Yeah. At that point you might as well buy that Lamborghini we were talking about earlier. You’re in this whole setup for half a million dollars to run test and tune like those people that spend all that money on cars that they run at H P D E. This is our bad. This belonged in rich people. Thanks. Well, speaking of other rich people things, Rivian, I don’t know where that renting came from because that’s not exactly how they’re advertising it, but yes, there is always gonna be an S U V in their lineup.

The R one s, this sort [01:04:00] of looks like the Jeep Grand Cherokee had a baby with the Rivian. Why is the roof slanted so much? This has to be someone’s rendering because it’s not the real one is square. Got it. Yeah. They ruin this. It’s, it’s a box. They’re doing this. They messes up. I haven’t seen it offered in any package other than regular, which is very land rry.

Is it for sale right now or is it still sort of being teased for pre-release? Uh, yeah, I don’t think it’s for sale. It is fully advertised on their website and everything. I believe the price they listed at starting at 78 and that the R one T, which is the pickup truck, starts at 73. So they’re actually surprisingly priced very similarly.

I spoke to someone recently who said they actually went for a ride in one of the new rivian pickups, and I know we were talking about going to go test drive one and we probably still will here in the fall when we get the opportunity here in the dmv. They were out west and they told me that basically it’s very, very small.

It [01:05:00] seems larger on the outside, but on the inside it’s quite cramped. They said they were sort of uncomfortable, and I said, so how small is it? Are we talking old Ford one 50 small? Because people’s definition of small varies or are we talking like. G M C, Jimmy, S 10 small, like old school ranger small. And they said it’s about the size of the Maverick.

Obviously, you know, Ford and Rivian are in in bed together. Maybe there’s some sharing going there. I don’t know. But they said it’s about that size at least internally, so it’s not the most comfortable pickup truck in the world. And because this particular person was used to a bigger pickup, like a Silverado F-150 of the current ones, they’re like, yeah, this really isn’t for me.

Let’s be real what it is. Okay. It’s not a pickup truck to go haul your mulch once a year. Yeah, you can put a bag in the back of this thing. But honestly, it’s like someone who’s a hipster or whatever and they want a pickup truck, but they don’t want a Ford pickup truck or the Chevy, whatever. And they do want something small, but they want it to look like a pickup truck.

[01:06:00] And that’s what this is. You’re gonna go camping and you can throw your cooler in the back or something in a tent, but that’s about it. What are you really doing with this? Nothing That sounds negative. I like the way it looks very much. But in terms of like being this awesome utility vehicle, no. So yeah, if you’re coming from a F two 50, 500 million dually triple cab extended Texas edition.

Yeah, I’m sure This thing is like driving a Kia Rio. The looks are always just captivating. Like I can’t stop looking at the rivian. There’s something about the front end. It’s very animal-like. And I haven’t decided if those oval shaped things are tusks or they’re nostrils or, or what they are. But there’s kinda like a snake somehow doesn’t.

Yeah. Or a hippo. I’m not sure. A snake thing. Yeah, fake pain. It’s cool like, but it captivates you. Like you keep looking at it, you keep looking at it and it, it’s neat. It’s different enough that it’s unique and it doesn’t look like everything else on the road. That’s a bummer that it’s small though. Yeah.

So Brad, you might not fit. That’s the punchline. We will. [01:07:00] So, switching gears, we want to talk about JDM news, which encompasses all the Asian brands, the Japanese, the Koreans, Chinese, and whatever else we can find out there. So, you know, we’ve made it a point this season to dive more into those vehicles. You know, we were really heavily slanted on the German cars for a long time and I wanna start out with the technical article I came across cuz I thought it was intriguing.

We’ve had several episodes on this show talking about oil changes and services and testing and talking to different oil manufacturers and, and brands and whatnot. And there’s a Toyota master technician out there that’s arguing against oil change intervals that Toyota recommends for their engines after he broke down a Camry motor.

I’m gonna fast forward the whole thing because as soon as I started reading it, I put two and two together and the comments in the article do what I’m about to say, justice. Basically stop crying. It’s one car. Plenty of people that are doing 10,000 mile oil changes that aren’t burning a cord of oil every day, you know, or whatever it is.

Unfortunately, [01:08:00] as sophisticated as the cars have become, we have less and less gauges and we have less and less information in the vehicles. So if this particular Camry was running low oil pressure, it was already doing damage before the customer or the driver even knew that the damage was happening. So he probably blew the rings in the motor, and that’s uncommon for a Toyota or a Honda or any of these.

They’re pretty reliable, bulletproof motors. I’m not gonna sit here and say 10,000 mile oil changes aren’t a good thing, but I think you should probably get your oil tested, like we talked about back in, I think it was season two with Blackstone Joe from Slick. Talk about why those tests are important. If you have any doubt you have any concerns, you’re starting to see anything weird, get that oil tested and find out if you’ve got deposit any freeze or any sorts of other things that aren’t supposed to be there at your next oil change and get ahead of it.

That’s not for everybody. That’s for us, the enthusiasts. That’s for us, the wrench, Turners, and the DIYs. To base this whole thing around one car I, I wanna see not a [01:09:00] hundred, I don’t wanna see 10,000, I wanna see a hundred thousand Camry with this same problem, but to base this whole thing around one car, I think it’s just stupid.

Agreed. The next article should have Tanya. Super excited. So we’re gonna go test drive the Rivian in the fall. The Nissan 400 s coming out in the fall officially, unless they kick the can on that again. Well, we’ve already talked about the Nissan 400 being not on our list, but you know what is still on Tanya’s list that she can go drive in October.

Fiat Panda Don’t, do you dare tease me like that. Her second favorite car that isn’t the Yaris. GR Corolla. That’s right. The GR Corolla is supposedly hitting our shores October the 22nd. I don’t know why they gave such a specific date on that, but October of this year, we’re gonna be able to go out and test drive gr corollas.

So I’m excited about that. So Tanya, correction, you’re not gonna be able to test drive one. Why not? Because the US dealers aren’t going to let you. Aw. I guarantee [01:10:00] you, you’re not gonna be able to test drive one. I bet you people couldn’t test drive the new super when it came out. You think guarantee, unless you put a deposit down, you are not going to be able to test drive one.

You may not even be able to sit one. Screw that up. Is that a not refundable deposit? Probably refundable because good dealers are a little bit better than the shady ass GM dealers. It’s just a Corolla though. I don’t see why they would hold you back from, don’t you wanna sell these cars? It’s not just a Corolla, it’s a GR Corolla.

Exactly. Same with the Civic type R. I guarantee you, you will not be able to walk into a dealership unless you have money to put down and say, I want you to test drive a new civic type R. They probably won’t have one for you to test drive. The only one will be the one in their showroom because there’ll be some sort of problem in shipping to tend to one.

It’s somebody else’s car too. It’s coming in October. One of the dealerships will have one at either let’s say in our area, the DC or Baltimore Auto Show, and we will get to sit in one. They’ll have removed the shift knob and the wiper blades and the wheels and everything else, but we’ll be able to see one and sit in one at one of the car shows for sure.

You just won’t be [01:11:00] able to drive it. Our hopes and dreams are crushed. Thank you, Brad, for bringing that to our attention. What a poop. You’re welcome. But here’s also where I’ve got my expectations set really high. And it’s because Hyundai has come out of left field and shocked me with a vehicle that I didn’t think that they could produce.

Who is in charge of the art department in right Hyundai? Uh, probably a guy from Alpha Romeo, somebody from somewhere else. So what we’re talking about here is the Hyundai N Vision 74 concept, followed very closely with the RN 22 E, I think the new Hyundai GTV six is a really cool car. It’s more DeLorean than the DeLorean is.

I mean, this thing is Epicly cool. It’s like retro wide body. Which one’s which? So the N 74 vision is the two-door coop that looks like a DeLorean, like an old school. DeLorean. The RN 22 E is basically a highly modified Sonata or Elantra or whatever. It’s one of those [01:12:00] type of sedans. I want whatever one I already just forgot cause I’m staring at it.

The one that looks like the DeLorean, the vision. Yeah, it’s got those same headlights as the Ionic five. I mean there’s just, there’s so many cool things about this car. The boxy flares that are so like retro, so eighties. Please Hyundai, please make this car. Now there’s a video, apparently they’ve built one and they’ve built an RN 22 E as well, and they have them running side by side on a test track.

Now both of these vehicles are EVs and you don’t hear a whole lot. There’s a lot of whining. Kind of like the The Mae 1400. I want them. Where are they? I don’t get enough clips. I almost look like it was like the numer ring track. Track. Not the ring reminded me of the test track that Volkswagen owns in Germany that a lot of people use for testing with a high bank.

It’s like Elsa something or other. I mean the car looks sick. It’s amazing. It’s, they have to build this blinking. Gorgeous. I’m sure it’ll be. Unobtainium priced the sound aside because it did sound like Night Rider in the video. I mean, that’s [01:13:00] my first takeaway from the sound of the vehicle. But my gut reaction when I saw the pictures come across my desk and then the video came out a couple days later, I haven’t been blown away by a car like I have with this one in a long time.

I literally said out loud to myself, F that Nissan, I need this car. And secondly, I thought this is the coolest DeLorean ever built in Korea. Much like I always say that the Veloster is the best G t I ever built in Korea. So if they’re bringing a lot of that to the table, I’m really, really psyched. To see this happen.

We, you know, we talked about the ionic five. Have you guys seen the Kia equivalent to that on the road? They call it the e V six. I saw one the other day. I don’t think I’ve seen that. I’ve seen it but I don’t think I’ve seen it on the road. It’s sort of got a Maserati like fish look to it. It’s not angular.

It’s very slippery. It almost kind of looks like that Mercedes we’ve been talking about that gets like 700 miles to a single charge. Are we talking about the same Kia E V six? I believe so. I [01:14:00] saw that was the badge on the back of it when I saw it in traffic the other day. Cause it looks nothing like that concept Mercedes car.

That’s it with that funky wraparound rear taillight and everything. It’s sort of like a crossover but it’s not. Mm-hmm. It’s lower than it looks in pictures. I think it’s lower than the Ionic five. It’s quite wide and so when I saw it in person from different angles and stuff, I was like man this thing is wicked.

And I don’t know if the guy was messing with me or whatever, but cuz I kept pulling up and backing off and you know, I’m out there in my station wagon making noise and I wasn’t trying to mess with him. I was just trying to get a good look at it and then suddenly he just punches it and I mean the thing took off like a rocket ship.

If it’s sharing the same power plan as the ionic, it’s definitely got some get up and go. If it’s a competitor to the ID four, I don’t know. I think I would pick the Ionic first. I think the Ionic is too small to be a competitor for the ID four. No, apparently the wheel base of it is as big as the ID four or bigger Really.

It does not look good at all. It’s 118 [01:15:00] inches wheelbase. Wow. That’s huge. It’s a deceiving car in photo. It looks so small and I’ve seen multiple in person up close, and I’m always surprised. It’s like weird. There’s like this weird perception depth thing that happens. You see it next to other cars and you’re like, it’s really tall and you see it by yourself.

It’s like it’s really small. Yeah. And to go along with that, the Lamborghini that we mentioned earlier, I looked up the specs on that. The wheel base on that is 106. And to put it in further perspective, the Mark four Volkswagens that we’re all very familiar with, those have a 98 inch wheel base. And longer than that are Formula One cars.

They’re at 140 inches now. They’re like freaking pickup trucks. So the ID four s wheel base is 108 inches, 108.9, 109 inches, whatever. It’s longer. Even though I would say it’s a smaller car, right? It’s deceiving. I’d have to see them side by side. The thing is so deceptive when you see it. Okay, so, so wheel based aside, what’s.

Total overall length because [01:16:00] the wheel base, I’ve seen them though the wheels are pushed pretty far out to the corners, but I don’t think they are on the ID four. So overall length I think is what we should be focusing on. If it’s 200 inches right, then you cross into that Explorer territory i E five is 183 inches long.

The ID four is 181 inches long. So that’s as big as my Jeep. Then my Grand Cherokee’s in the 180 inch, I think it, yeah, I think it’s right around there, but there’s no way, it’s not as big as your car. This thing is like mind-blowingly deceptive. Yeah. When you see it, maybe it’s the weird angles that are on it.

Make it look smaller. Yeah. Cause I thought it was the size of like a mark five. I thought it was gonna be like the size of like a Corolla hatchback or you know, more traditionally a golf blah, blah blah. Right. But then I saw it in person and I’m like, this thing is taller than, yeah. As I passed on on a road and I was like, holy crap, I’m looking up at this thing.

Granted my car’s lowered, but still like seeing it past the roof plans of other cars, just like, wow, you’re taller than I thought. It’s just deceptive. I still like it. I do too. And going back to the grill comment on [01:17:00] the charger, I like how they made that grill as well. They’ve sort of made a mini grill that’s not really grill, but it’s just like this black area where you could perceive a grill being on the car.

Right. As opposed to like just this flat front face like a Tesla has. I like how they did that. It’s still not as cool as the end vision 74 concept though. That is just sick. Take my money. So speaking of another hie, have you seen this Genesis X concept evolves into the elegant. Speed coop. So I’m not sure I like the name.

And when you first click in the article, all you see is the rear end of the car and I’m like, wow, Hyundai, you’re doing well here. But then unfortunately you scroll down and you get to the front of the car and I’m kinda like, eh, I’m not sure. I like what they did with that triangle nose. Okay, I have questions.

Dig in the flares, the wide body look. Why do the lights go completely through the front? Fend. Why is Hyundai trying to make a 9 28? I thought Hyundai was the [01:18:00] best. Aston Martin from Korea. Yeah, there’s a lot going on with this car. Again, it’s a very long two-door. I like the sloped rear end again.

Reminiscent true of the astin of the 9 28, a bunch of other cars. The back is great, the side profile is great. Whatever they’ve done with the headlights, going all the way down to the door on the side of the car is bizarre and needs to go away. They need to fix the headlights and then they need to fix this whatever triangle shape, I guess the headlights also make.

Yeah, and get rid of that. Put like the nose of the whatever thing, 74 on there from the profile. It makes sense. It draws your eye across the car cuz it’s so long and those doors are so humongous. The LEDs, as they wrap through the fender, it carries up into the C pillar as it swos up to the sloping rear end and brings your eye to the back end because the taillights also wrap around most of the way into the rear quarter panel.

So I see how they use those lines to kind of bring [01:19:00] it all together From the profile view, from the front, it is a bit shocking. Like I, I’m still confused how this is even gonna pass like d o t with this sort of, you know, headlight configuration. I gotta give ’em props for pushing the envelope or not seeing manufacturers putting stuff out like this, right?

You’re either getting more of the same, you know, same old Mercedes, same old BMW and we’re gonna change the power plant, which is fine. Or you get something just totally whimsical or whackadoodle that like doesn’t make any sense at all. So they’re sort of pushing the boundary of design and I like it. The thing that I really like about this car is that rear spoiler, that little, the ducktail.

Yeah, exactly. It’s cute. I’ll just say, you know how this car passes, d o t flip up headlights as a concept car technically, even though they’ve given it a name. You know, obviously they would still have to probably change some things to be compliant with certain road rule regulations. A lot of these features and stuff will probably end up on other Genesis cars.

I mean, they can put [01:20:00] that rear end on another car and to wrap out our long practically could have showcased on Hyundai. Hyundai this month. We should have, it would’ve been more entertaining that GM stuff. So our second mini showcase of Hyundai cars, the 2022 Carn driver ev of the year has recently been announced.

And spoiler alert, it is the Ionic five. Hey, hey. Congratulations. Congratulations. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap. The article has a almost an eight minute video. That’s pretty good. They’re showing a guy. Test driving it and detailing how they do the test drives and all that stuff. Kind of giving you the feel and the comfort and opinions, this, that and the other.

Obviously it’s not the longest range cuz it only gets 210. So in terms of range, it’s not in the top tier, but basically it’s scored on average of all features and considerations. It’s scored the best for comfort of ride and acceleration and those kind of things for what [01:21:00] it is. And it only costs 41,000 versus something like a Tesla or Lucid Air Ridiculousness.

Right. It’s more reasonably priced. How much does it cost? 41 because as tested was 60, so it starts at 41 because I was just about to say, how are we seeing so many of these cars around if they’re so freaking expensive? The prices of everything are going up. There’s some funny things about the Iion Incs design, like that cladding that’s at the bottom of the doors.

I could live without that. I wish there wasn’t also that strike between the the rear door and the front door. But I get why they’re doing the angles the way they are. But overall it’s an attractive car. Those wheels are a throwback to an older genesis that I saw actually at one of the car shows years ago.

So I think those are pretty cool. I think it suits the car. I love the overall shape, but the interior, what an interior, what a nice place to live. It actually looks really, really cool inside. Everything really comes together on this vehicle. Had a very cleaning dash. It’s very nice. Yeah, no IKEA in there.

Well some [01:22:00] news coming outta Honda. We have been talking in preparation for LA’s 2023. You can go back a couple episodes where we nerded out and LA’s was our showcase. The Acura LM v h car is real. The L M D H type S Acura number 93. They’ve released photos of it and it is pretty wicked looking. Yeah, it does look nice.

I’m a little confused about the vents above the lights in front of the front wheels. I don’t know what those are exactly. I know there’s the canards and diffusers there for the arrow and whatnot over top of the tire, but I don’t understand what’s going o on with the headlights section, but it, I still think it looks really, really cool.

No, I, yeah, I, I, I think it’s a pretty killer looking race car. All right, so what else is in the random new EVs and concept cards that we need to talk about? Interesting company, which I’m, I’m still trying to figure out who exactly they are because when you look at ’em, it’s like a Vietnam company that’s headquartered in Singapore, but then I thought I saw something about they’re [01:23:00] manufactured in Ukraine or something, but VIN fast.

Okay. Yeah, we mentioned them on the last drive-through episode. They are an electric car maker as well, and they offer a couple models essentially to the VF eight and the VF nine. The VF eight is a mid-size S U V and the nine is a full size u v mid-size. The eight starts at $40,700 and the nine, the full size SUV starts 55,000.

Now the interesting thing is, aside from that, feels like a very low number for something that gets almost 300 miles of range with an estimated quote, 400 horsepower. Those are some pretty interesting numbers for that price. The interesting part is there’s an asterisks and it says, plus monthly battery subscription.

What Uhhuh, so when you go to the monthly battery subscription, this is what it says. The VIN Fast Battery Subscription program is a truly innovative service model that makes premium electric vehicles more accessible to [01:24:00] everyone. When customers purchase VIN Fast EVs, the battery cost is excluded from the vehicle purchase price.

Customers only pay a monthly subscription fee based on the plan that suits their needs. Interesting. Additionally, with a valid battery subscription, vin, fast Bear’s responsibility for battery repairs, maintenance and replacement costs to provide customers with a worry-free experience for the life of the vehicle.

I don’t know how much that costs, but that is very interesting sounding. It’s not $1. I doubt it would be for a brand that very few have heard of before. I gotta say it is reminiscent of other vehicles. There’s some Mazda CX nine kind of look to this thing. There’s definitely a very ciro in front end on it.

The back view I think is the best. It looks a lot like the ID four and some other vehicles, but overall, when you put it all together, there’s not a bad angle on this. It’s a very unassuming car that you could park in a Walmart parking [01:25:00] lot or a target and people go, okay, yeah, they drive an SUV like everybody else.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing because do you want something that’s overly ostentatious that people are going, what the hell’s a vin fast? Why would you ever drive that thing? Versus you kind of blend into traffic. It looks like they also unveiled a VF seven in LA not long ago. That’s just another variant of the same formula here.

Again, I don’t find fault with this thing. I would love to see another boutique manufacturer come to the shores. Actually, they do list their plan prices. If you scroll further down on their subscription page, so it’s interesting. They offer a fixed plan, which basically unlimited mileage per month, $110 per month.

If you have the mid-size U V one 60 with the full size, if you don’t drive that often, which okay, maybe you live in the city, you can have the flexible plan and you only get 310 miles per month for $35 or $44, and then there’s an additional like 11 cents or 15 cents per mile if [01:26:00] you go above your 10.

It’s like a cell phone plan. I was just say, we’re going back to the Nokia cell phone days. I can’t come out tonight. I. I, I’m past my minutes. I don’t have enough. I don’t have enough miles on my, on my freepage. You can only drive nights and weekends. You got the nights and weekend? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. I can only go out after nine o’clock and I have to be back before 7:00 AM the next day.

There’s so many people that won’t know what that means. Yeah. It’s cheaper to text than to talk. Right. It’s the same plan with the car. I think that’s a weird model to follow. I was thinking you were gonna say, okay, it’s a hundred dollars a month. You’re gonna get 300 miles of range, but you want 400 miles of range.

It’ll unlock some software and you pay 125 a month. Not it’s 300 miles. Total? No, it’s what you can go, it’s implies because if it only can get 292 miles of range, it’s not what you get on your charge, it’s just your cumulative monthly mileage. That’s nutty because you could kill that in one [01:27:00] day driving somewhere.

And then, then what do you do? You’re stuck on the side of the road with your VIN fast? No, because you’ll just get charged 11 cents a mile that you go over. Right? Because it’s, it’s got, obviously it’s got like a, a counter, it’s the leasing model. So when you lease a car, you lease it per, but I’m gonna drive 10,000 miles a year, or 12 or 15.

And when you go over, then you have to pay the overage fee, which is like Kanye was saying, it’s for me cents per mile or whatever. What I love about this, and I I, I’m being sarcastic, is that you’re buying a car and the most integral part of the vehicle, it’s like buying an ice car and you don’t own the engine, right?

You’re leasing the engine. And then what happens if you go to sell that car or you don’t make payments or like when you own the car free and clear, you’re not making payments on it anymore. Are you still just leasing the batteries? It says the policy is automatically transferred to the new owner when the vehicle is sold.

Mm. Yeah. I believe when I see it, yeah. Well it’s okay because we’re in denial about the chip shortage anyway, so I [01:28:00] don’t know how many of these are gonna get built in the near future. True. The because chips that we talked about months ago has not changed, there’s still a shortage. I think the bigger problem too is as some of these larger EVs are coming to bear, let’s use the Hummer as an example.

I was reading something even the other day that for every one Hummer that they’re building, they could build like five or six other regular EVs outta those vehicles. So there’s that problem as well. There’s only so many of these precious resources to go around and now we’re building cars that are fully dependent on them and then all the microprocessors and everything else to go along with that.

So building something like a Hummer really cuts into the production of other vehicles and that’s why you’ve got stuff sitting around that still can’t be finished. There are two articles that I read on the drive kind of related to what you were just saying about how you, you can only build so many of these cars cuz of the resources and everything.

Did you guys see that in California by. The year 2035, they’re no longer going to allow the [01:29:00] sale or purchase of ice cars. I, I had just seen that. Yeah, I did hear that too. No new gas powered vehicles will be able to be sold in California as of 2035. Now is that like new from dealer or used car? No new from Dior.

So used vehicles and stuff can still be kind of grandfathered in and everything. The carb restrictions are still gonna be the carb restrictions, so you’re gonna be restricted on what you can bring in. I keep saying it and people will argue against me and that’s fine, but I keep saying cars are going to become equestrian.

And what I mean by that is it’s the same thing as when cars replaced horses. EVs are replacing ice internal combustion engines in the same way that we did that. So I, I have joked before that we’re gonna be like the Amish, we’re gonna have our own lane to the side of the road. Look at those guys ha over there with their gas powered cars.

It’s gonna be that the racetracks become our country clubs and if you can afford to run an ice powered vehicle, then [01:30:00] you will, but you’ll do it in certain places just like you do with horses, you know, except for the areas that allow it. You don’t see people riding horses on the major roads, you know, things like that.

So my gut says we’re gonna move in that direction in the next probably 20 years. It’s gonna be a while before we get there. To your point earlier about the precious metals and the lack of resources to be able to make this a. Full scale conversion from ice to electric when the ice cars came out and started taking over from the horses and, and the more primitive modes of transportation did they have the same types of limitations?

And I mean, it looks like the EV conversion in the EV market itself is trying to fight an uphill battle cuz they don’t have the resources to even do this on a small scale, let alone a large scale like they want to. There’s a great series on history channel if you go back and it’s the cars that built the world.

And they talk about Daimler bends before they got together and all that, and how [01:31:00] Bens especially didn’t want to put his car out there. His wife did it. There’s this whole story about how his wife jumped in the original Ben’s motor wagon and drove to her mother’s house with the kids and it was like 60 miles away and it took them, I forget how many hours or days or whatever it was.

And part of the problem was that the fuel tank on the original Ben’s motor wagon was tiny. It was like a liter, but it could go X amount of distance on that liter. So it’s kind of the same parallel that you are talking about. With the ev, we only have so much range. Back then they didn’t have range anxiety because it was such new technology.

And you see that with the early adopters. People are like, I don’t care if it goes 50 miles. I got an electric car and I don’t need to use gas. What was the turning point? And it’s talked about in that docu-series, right? That documentary is that gasoline was a precious resource. It didn’t exist in abundance, but there were other types of cleaners and other types of chemicals that were readily available that Ben’s [01:32:00] wife could pick up at like the local aary.

Throw it in the tank and keep going because the motor was primitive enough that it could run on anything that would basically combust. So at that point, it goes back to the questions that Tanya has brought up in the past about the battery technologies. Are we on the verge of coming up with a new way to create the electrolysis that happens inside of a battery?

Does it have to be lithium? It’s not gonna be nickel metal, high dried like we use in our rechargeable double A batteries because that’s just, it doesn’t work. I’m sure there’s companies out there, I’ve heard things coming from like Panasonic, like they came up with a whole new way of doing batteries, but it’s not available to the mass market yet.

Maybe that Panasonic battery is gasoline where the lithium batteries are that concoction from the apothecary that we’re using to get by until the next thing is coming. I don’t think we’ve reached the Model T of EVs yet. I don’t think that car has been built. I think it’s [01:33:00] is yet to come and we’re all kind of scrambling to get there, just like it was in the early 19 hundreds where we had all these boutique manufacturers.

So then my point is, why is it acceptable for governments to mandate purchasing these vehicles if the technology hasn’t really been flushed out yet at a scale for the mass market? And I, not to get on the political soapbox, I think it has to do with the fact that the nature of government has changed. If we go back a hundred years, government was smaller.

Yes, there was a lot of laws in place and things like that, and the wars that had taken place and all that. But I think it’s accelerated since the 1950s in terms of how much is in the way it’s called a bureaucratic red tape. There’s a lot more of that since post World War II than there ever was before.

So there’s been a drastic shift in what we’ve allowed the government to control or where they’ve stepped in to put the oversight and all that kind of stuff. And I don’t think that’s gonna change because [01:34:00] it’s just the way we are. We just like everything else, cars keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger as they evolve.

The government has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger as it’s matured as well. And, and not only are cars getting bigger and bigger and bigger, they’re also getting more expensive and more expensive and more expensive. A hundred percent. And eventually there are poorer communities and poorer people out there that they’re gonna be priced out of owning a vehicle.

They’re the ones that are gonna suffer the most. There are already so many that are priced out of owning a vehicle today because with the average price of, of brand new vehicles, like what? 35, 30 $6,000? It’s absurd. That’s where the catch 22 is, is not to get political. We raised the minimum wage inflation has raised everything out of the reach of the new minimum wage.

Right? Exactly. It’s a vicious cycle. Yeah, but this is the same argument as solar panels. Oh, solar panels are never gonna do anything because the cost is just too prohibitive. Nobody can afford them. And then what have you seen in the last decade or 15 years, et cetera, as the price has come drastically down.

Right. So as things scale to market, as innovation [01:35:00] occurs within that product, the price can come down. We’re still at the forefront of this battery technology design. There’s still innovation to be made, new ways of doing electric motors. There’s a young man, Florida man, a young Florida man, 17 years old, just won some big award for his novel design of a new electric motor that uses no rare earth metals if that can be scaled up.

He has a benchtop model that he is done all himself in his garage, claims to be almost 40% more efficient torque gear, et cetera, than normal electric motors. This is the kind of stuff that needs to be allowed to happen. You can’t just go snap my fingers. I have solved the battery issue and the electric motor issue.

No, there’s constantly gonna be development, but it takes years. Before it can come to fruition. Right. And to my point, is this something that is going to be flushed out in the next 13 years? California is betting that. Yes. I don’t disagree with you. It’s absurd to be like, you have to be forced to buy this, that and the other.

But you know, you can also choose not to [01:36:00] live in California. Let’s be real. People who live in California have a certain way of life, certain quality, certain mindset. They’re more environmentally conscious than another state in the country. And so they care about emissions and stuff like that. So to them, to the vast majority of people that choose to live in California, they’re probably okay with the idea of a switch to electric vehicles.

Are you gonna get Texas that’s gonna come out and say by 2035 you can’t buy an ice engine? Hell no. There’s also larger things at play too. I can’t say for a fact, but a lot of people have said that the electrical grid in the United States can’t support it either. And we’re deferring the pollution from the city centers back to the power plants.

And in this country, we’re not running on nuclear. No, it’s different when you’re in Canada or France or something like that. Mm-hmm. We’re running on coal, we’re running on whatever. And so all we’ve done is displace one for the other. And if you’re okay with it, that’s fine. To your point, if you don’t wanna live in California, don’t live in California.

Now this guy in Florida, you know, you immediately made me conjure the imagery of, you know, the potato [01:37:00] powering the light bulb and the science fair project, you know, add some acid. No, and, and go from there. All jokes aside, that’s not what he did. I want a potato power. Not at all. I mean, if you wanna nerd out on the synchronous reluctance motor, not using magnets, steel rotors with air gaps, blah, blah, blah, and all the stuff that he built, it’s not a potato with a light bulb in it.

It’s a pat potato. It’s a pat potato. That’s what it’s I, I don’t disagree with anything that’s being said, and I still stand by that. I don’t know that it makes sense to be a hundred percent, like we’re swinging the pendulum where there’s gonna go a hundred percent ev. There’s probably a happy medium where there’s a mixture, and I would love to see the tractor trailers, the city buses, the school buses, the post.

Trucks and all that kind of crap, be electric and not sitting there smogging up the world. But unfortunately, who’s gonna pay for all that? Right? There’s more of them than there are of us. And why can’t they lead by example instead of leading by dictations. And also, it’s not just California, because there are several states that [01:38:00] follow California’s carb guidelines and stuff like that, and it’s theorized that West California makes this change.

All these other states that follow their lead are going to follow suit rather quickly. To Tanya’s point, well, don’t live in California a place you don’t wanna live. I’m transitioning to a different story now. You don’t wanna live in Australia because the Australian bank has said by 2025, they will no longer offer loans for gasoline or diesel cars.

Wow. That’s a bold move. Cotton. It’s only for brand new vehicles, but they will no longer offer new auto loans for gasoline or diesel powered vehicles. That’s all right. They’ll be Chinese subprime loans for all that stuff that you can apply for. So it’ll be all good. Oh yes. The joys of subprime lending.

Thinking of litigious things in California and everything else, let’s talk about how there’s an alleged lawsuit against DeLorean. By way of karma for an intellectual property infraction. That’s a bad karma. Yeah, right. Yeah. [01:39:00] That’s some bad karma. Let me put it this way. Can we build a car with a name DeLorean, without some sort of scandal attached to it?

Apparently not. No. No. This is all part of the marketing for the DeLorean, I think it is too. This is already the second scandal. The first scandal was like the unknown child coming out of the woodworks. Oh yeah. That guy building those Reliant Robbins and whatnot. The short of the long of this story is that at some point, the DeLorean Reimagined company, which is different, I guess, than the Steve Wynn mothership, DeLorean Motor Company, so I didn’t realize that either.

As I was digging into the story, the four heads of DeLorean Reimagined as they’re calling it, even though we all call it DeLorean for short, originally worked at Karma, and they left. There was an idea about a partnership between DeLorean and Karma. It fell apart, and then now the DeLorean was being debuted at Pebble Beach and all the things that we talked about over the last couple months.

Somebody got upset and said, oh, well, because they worked here, they took [01:40:00] intellectual property with them, and it’s, you can see it. It’s evident in the DeLorean. Okay, fine. Karma isn’t doing that great. Let’s be real as a brand. So I can see how they would be clawing away saying, well, our people defected and went to another company that is wrapped in the mystery and the mystique and the allure of the DeLorean name, and maybe it’s gonna take off.

So maybe there’s some jealousy, little green eye monster there. I don’t know how much of this is real, how much of his fiction, and to Brad’s point is a publicity stunt files have been filed and papers have been issued, and we’ll see how it all turns out for DeLorean at the end. Now, I will say from a social media perspective, it looks like the new DeLorean was pretty well received at Pebble Beach.

The car that was on display was not silver. It was like a, like a Burt orange sort of reddish color, which I thought was an interesting way to put it out there versus what I expected to see was what we saw in the pictures. So good on them. We’ll see how it goes. Hopefully they sell some cars. So now it’s time for Brad’s favorite section, lost and Found, where he is now looking [01:41:00] for H hrs and not Dodge Darts, but there are some Dodges on your list.

Yeah, so I’m kind of done looking for darts right now as we look for the the H hrs and I’m gonna look for other obscure terrible cars in the future. But we did find a Dodge Viper for sale. Oh, is it? Is it one of those leftover 2016 Vipers? No, it’s even better. It’s a 2002. 2002. It’s a Timo tool. No, it’s a 2002 Dodge Viper, R T 10 0, 1 of my favorites.

That’s technically a gen two. Still that classic, original Viper body style. What’s special about this one? It comes in a classic dodge wiper color too. Pepto abysmal pink. Don’t. Ugh. It is the Barbie Viper. Oh my God, this is horrendous. How much is this going for? $63,000. Wow. You can keep it. Well, here’s an interesting question.

Would you rather buy this or would you rather buy a zero six [01:42:00] with $90,000 dealer markup because you can buy this and paint it a hundred percent. Yeah, exactly. That’s what I’m thinking. I think I would buy the Lipper. I really would. I might drive it around Pepto-Bismol Pink for a while. I mean, you kind of flaunt it a little bit.

Take it to a cars and coffee and watch everybody faint. True. When you drive up to the nail salon place and get your, your Manny pet and your hair done well that is just sad. Pretty much all I got for you. Well then I guess that means it’s time for us to be not remiss. Oh, oh, we got Tesla news. We, we had a black out there for a while.

We did. Well we got a couple interesting ones. Some of these almost borderline on like Florida, man. We’ll keep ’em here under the Tesla thing. So the first one is about another Tesla vehicle fire. We’ve had quite a few. Of course, everyone will pound their fists on the table and say that a ice engine is much more likely to catch on fire, blah blah blah.

And maybe that’s true. I don’t know. I haven’t seen the data. But what’s disturbing is I’m not really aware of [01:43:00] many ice vehicles, if any, that three weeks after they’ve been in an accident and have been sitting in a junkyard burst into flames. Ooh. Spontaneous combustion. Mm-hmm. And this isn’t the first time this has happened either.

This has happened several times. Well, and that’s the scary thing. Fine. An ice engine. There was one not too far away. There’s some Ford F-150 parked on the side of the road. Hopefully the guy got out on time. Cuz there nothing left of the front engine or the cockpit area. It’s on fire. It was scorched melted.

How many wheels did it have? The back two. Losing its wheels was the least of its worries apparently. That’s what called the Indian fire. The wheel came off, knocked some, uh, brake line out, and the fluid splash splash on the hot engine. No, but that’s kind of scary to me that there’s been more than one reported incident where, oh, there was a tractor trailer filled with Teslas and it’s spontaneously combusted.

Or there was a Tesla parked in a parking garage and it’s spontaneously combusted. Uh, that sounds scarier to me than, yeah, I could be driving down my road and some sort of fuel line bursts and yeah, I [01:44:00] could have a fire in my car, but usually my car that’s been sitting all weekend and the garage doesn’t, just, unless arson happened, doesn’t just combust.

I say luckily the intrepid junkyard workers were very, uh, creative in how they managed to get it out because obviously it’s not easy to, to put out those kind of fires. Long story short, they ended up digging a pit, filling the pit with water, and then lifting the Tesla and like throwing it in the pit so they could just sit in a pool of water.

That’s awesome. And that was what finally quenched the fire because it kept reigniting and they finally got it out that way. Tesla was thirsty and it just needed to be quenched. It needed its thirst quenched, and there is like nothing left of it. Basically, but to Tesla’s defense, this isn’t an issue that is known only for Tesla’s.

Sure, because Eric, didn’t you get some sort of notification that you are not supposed to park your car in your garage for a time period there because it could spontaneously combust. Yeah, the Pacifica had an issue, but it [01:45:00] actually dealt with the regular battery and not the hybrid battery system. There was some connector that they were worried that was gonna short out and cause a fire in the trunk because the actual regular 12 volt battery is in the trunk that’s been taken care of.

We took it in. There was like a five minute fix, but yes, you’re correct cuz I think the Chevy Volt or Bolt or something, one of those old, the Joel Cola, the Chevy Joel Cola had a recall of similar effect where it was like park it outside. I don’t remember what the culprit was, but yes. It’s not a Tesla It you’re right.

But it is an EV and plugin hybrid related, I think a Kia recall on the new Tellurides where they’ve just said don’t park them in your garage because they could catch on fire. So I said all that and maybe ice vehicles will also spontaneously catch on fire. Maybe garages are not for parking your vehicles anymore.

No, but here’s the other thing I see as a result of that. So the more of these events that happen, which are outside of our control, when do the homeowner’s insurance companies and underwriters step in and suddenly [01:46:00] bombarded all of us with increased rates on our homeowner’s insurance because our cars may or may not spontaneously burn our houses down.

Oh yeah. You know, they had that whole problem with flood insurance where people weren’t getting flood insurance and flood zones and all the issues that happened with Katrina and all that and, and everybody’s rates went up nationwide. We just saw a nationwide. Insurance increase on just car insurance in general lately, because the new cars are so expensive and we’re all driving old cars, you hit a Tesla and it’s a hundred thousand dollars.

So I can see this trickling down to homeowner’s insurance and suddenly my rates are going up because somebody’s Tesla burned their house down. Well, it’ll probably be a question when you go to apply for the insurance and they, they ask you like 150 questions. What is the roof material of your house?

What is the structure? What is the foundation? What kind of paint did you use? What toilet paper do you have in the bathroom? You know, blah blah blah. They’ll probably be like, what kind of car do you drive? And do you plan to park it in the garage? But that’s okay because when you burn your house down, Tesla has a solution for [01:47:00] you.

They do. And you know what I wanted to be like? I call bullshit on this. I wanna see Mr. Musk live in one of these $10,000 sustainable portable living homes. Portable. What the hell does that mean? It’s a mobile home. Like okay, like an rv. Well let’s call it what it is. It’s a Tesla trailer park. That’s what it is.

I mean, and that’s fine. No offense saying by living their best life in a trailer park or not their best life. Sorry, fine, but like what is this? And so, you know, I bit my words. Cause then I watched the skim through this eight minute little video and apparently Musk. Has a tweet out there somewhere that says that his house only costs $50,000.

How the hell does he have a house? Where does he live in like SpaceX that he rents from SpaceX or some shit. I’m like, what? I don’t believe you, as far as I can throw you, but maybe it’s true. He tweeted it lies. Yeah, because, uh, because everything you read on the internet is true. Well, everything he posts is true.

Right? That’s why he’s not in trouble with the s e C or anything like that. Never. Never. [01:48:00] This whole eight minute video is such bullshit too. Like you never see the home like I think for like 10 seconds out of eight minutes. Do you actually get to see this thing? Otherwise we’re like flashing neighborhoods and wherever.

And the Tesla factory and the cyber truck showed up at one point. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Just dawn on me. Oh. So this was an eight minute cyber truck commercial. If Tesla vehicles are made from Home Depot parts, what are Tesla homes made out of? Maybe that’s why you don’t actually see the home in the video.

And if you throw a rock at the window of the house, I’m just gonna leave it there. I mean, I’m so confused. You’re like 37 seconds into the video. I’m not, granted, I don’t have the sound on, but like, you see this neighborhood with these houses that must be like 4,000 square feet or some shit. I’m like, there’s no way that this isn’t the Tesla $10,000 home.

Like, what are you smoking? What’d you do? Make it out of cardboard boxes? Like I don’t get it anyway. Insane. If you’re interested in an affordable, sustainable living, $10,000 home made by Tesla, I don’t know. It doesn’t exist. [01:49:00] It’s coming next year. Yeah. And next year he’s gonna raise the rate 10,000 bucks.

Yeah. You can put your a hundred dollars deposit down. Yeah. And then yeah, yeah, it is. It costs $10,000 now and then it’ll be $250,000. Next year he’ll raise it because of, guess what? Inflation. The next Florida man, sorry, we’re not a Florida man yet, but this one applies. So, and you know what I also learned, apparently this is not the first time someone has done this, however, in the very recent, a few days.

Tesla owner implants his keys into his hand. Oh, say what? Yes, so he has implanted some part of the key fob, infrared R F D, whatever the heck in his hand. There’s even like a little picture that was someone surgically embedding something in between the pinky finger and the ring finger. On his hand. This is like sci-fi, total recall crap.

And then you see him like putting his his hand up against the pillar on the car to unlock his car. No way. Because now he won’t lose his keys. And apparently some lady did this several [01:50:00] years ago. Just cuz she could, because if people were telling her it wouldn’t be possible and she’s like, I’ll prove you wrong.

I don’t know what to say. I don’t understand like no, no. You are not implanting anything. No, no. I’m not volunteering to have anything implanted in me. Sorry, what hap what happens if his car keys spontaneously combust? What does he do if his hands is on fire? Not only that, from the picture that they’re showing, it looks like the raw circuit board going in.

Yes. Like what happens when the moisture from your body, the blood caked on it. Right. Well not only that, like they said in Star Trek where bags of mostly water, right? So this thing’s gonna be breaking down and corroding and, and all this kind of thing. What is that leeching into your body at the same time.

So what happens? You bang your hand really hard against something. Yeah. And crush your knuckle. And then like you break that thing inside you now what? Well, you’re not gonna drive your car hope you’re still carrying key with you, which defeats the purpose of having it in your hand. Can we just stop talking about this guy?

This is absurd. [01:51:00] We’ll go back to California. Let’s go back to those crazy people out in California. Those crazy people in California that we were getting upset about cuz they’re trying to get rid of ice cars. But you know what? Props to California on this one. Their safety advocates are trying to finally, their motor vehicle association, everything, have the full self-driving Tesla plane be put in a toilet.

Whoa, whoa. Are are you rejoicing? Did you throw a party that, isn’t that the most exciting news for you? It is, because I think that’s the dumbest thing to call because it’s not full self-driving. Stop calling at that. Stop making people think that they can go recline their seat and go to sleep on the highway at 70 miles an hour because my car is full self-driving.

No, it’s not. So yes, California’s doing a good thing with this. Call it something else until it actually is. What Tesla fails to realize is that people are stupid and they’re gonna believe whatever you tell them. The thing I took away from this article is that California, the way they’re forcing Tesla to [01:52:00] change what you and I would call false advertising, is basically saying that if the vehicle is fully autonomous, is fully self-driving, then they’re not selling vehicles anymore.

They’re not selling cars to consumers. So basically California’s twisting their arm and saying, if you want to continue to sell motor vehicles, it’s like a D M V versus Tesla situation. Yeah. That they need to be cars and not robots. So are you selling a robot or a car? Because the DMV is not in the business of titling and licensing robots.

Right. So it’s like this really weird discussion, but I get it from their perspective. So they’re really forcing Tesla’s hand to say, knock it off with all this self-driving nonsense. This is like when I tried to sell my soul on eBay and what? Yeah. So, and I was in my twenties and really dumb, and I was like, oh, this will be really cool.

I’ll sell my soul on eBay. Mm-hmm. Wait, wait, hold on. Hold on. How much did you get for it and does it cover your losses for the cyber truck? I got nothing for it [01:53:00] because eBay pulled my advertisement. It was pulled for one of two reasons. One, you cannot sell intangible objects on eBay. And two, if it is a tangible object, you cannot sell body parts.

That’s awesome. So I was not allowed to sell my soul on eBay and this kind of like this. So basically they just created an argument that suits their purposes and then they’re forcing Tesla to comply. So what I really wanna know is if your soul is an intangible object that can’t be sold on eBay, Dogecoin is an intangible currency that can only be traded in the ether of the interwebs.

How much Dogecoin is your sole worth? Uh, I dunno. I haven’t done the 2022 conversion rate yet with inflation. Don’t forget to correct for inflation. My soul is worth quite a bit more to me now than it used to be. So, ah, well now that you’ve thoroughly lowered our expectations, lowered expectations, I think we’re gonna round out with.

Our final piece of [01:54:00] Tesla news, right? Yeah. Or Tesla adjacent news. Tesla adjacent news. So it’s the boring company? Yes, exactly. So the ones that are making the hyperloop or whatever it’s called, Tesla’s in tunnels, driving themselves in Nevada or whatever now is Tesla’s being driven by somebody through a short tunnel at like 10 miles an hour.

It’s the small world ride at Disney World one at a time. Basically. He still reports that the whole infinite tunnel structures the way of the future because the above ground highways, there’s just. Too limitation, this, that and the other, blah blah. You read this article, so I was reading it, yada yada, yada, you know?

And then I got to the part he said, underground tunnels are immune to surface weather condition. Subways are a good example. And I just, full stop. I don’t even think I continued the article. I was like, go ask New York City if they agree with that, because not too long ago, their subway underground immune [01:55:00] tunnel.

Got flooded. This is the biggest scam on the planet. He has spent the last like five, 10 years selling people a hole in the ground. I mean, this is insane. The stuff that people will buy off on because Elon Musk puts his thumbprint on. It is just. Beyond my understanding, Elon Musk is using Earth as his testing ground for all his great ideas that he’s going to implement on Mars when he gets there.

I agree with that. Everything he’s trying to do here on earth is really just a concept. It’s proof of concept for what he plans to actually implement. When he gets to Mars, does he plan to be like 150 million years old? Yep. Maybe his neural network weave mesh thing for the brain that he was working on.

He’s gonna like use it to like become immortal that way he can get to Mars. That wasn’t his brain mesh, that was the hair implant regimen he was going through. Have you seen him from back in the PayPal [01:56:00] days? Come on. I mean, let’s be serious. He might already be an Android. He looks like Lieutenant Commander Data from Star Trek.

Is he a human? What’s gonna happen is he is going to live to be that old, but it’s gonna be like future Rama. Somebody’s gonna have his head in a glass, he’s gonna be put on a shelf somewhere. He’ll be like crying from the Ninja Turtles. Oh God. Uh, we love to rag on the guy, but he’s such a clown. He deserves it.

Uh, what’s next? Well, what’s next is something we talked about last month that I can’t believe they published yet. Another article about it was literally a complete regurgitation. Mitsubishi makes a comeback with the EVA 11 and. Nobody cares. Moving on. All right. Literally, I don’t even care enough to look at what it looks like.

So moving on to rich people, fangs, which we’ve covered a few of them already, but we put in one here specifically for Carv I’ve never even heard of. Please tell me the Bugatti Baby three is coming out. Oh, man, really? Oh, come on now. I’m excited. [01:57:00] So there’s something called the GMA T3 three Supercar. Yeah, the The Gordon Murray Automobiles.

Who? Gordon Murray should I know? Yeah. Hi bad. Who is he? One of the former McLaren designers. Oh, okay, okay. I don’t remember people’s names. All right. So former McLaren designer. He’s got his teeth 33 fully street legal supercar, and he already has a T 50 out. Be an interesting looking car. I mean, it looks like any other supercar really, but apparently the production’s going to be limited to no more than a hundred of these cars.

And if the $2.5 million price tag on the T 50 s a little too steep, then maybe you could go for the 1.9 million T 33. I’m sorry. They actually. They already sold out so you can’t even get one. Wa wa Where are people getting all those money? It’s like a couple of the Saudi princes celebrities and Steve Coogan who buys anything pinned by Gordon Murray.

It’s no normal person. How do I become a Saudi [01:58:00] prince? Yeah, I think you’re a little too tall and blonde. They don’t like tall blondes. Not your kind of blonde. I’m not gonna speak for them, but I think you’d stand out. That’s all I’m saying. Speaking of things that stand out, it’s time for us to go to the great state Florida.

Flo Ride a man. He stands out, that’s for sure. Florida man. Florida man. What you got for us? Coming in? Joy riding on construction equipment just for no good reason. He was a homeless man. That’s sad. He steals some construction equipment. Goes on a joy ride. Quote, leaves the path of destruction. Path of destruction.

You gotta read it right Leaves Path of destruction. Police say $10,000 worth of destruction. That’s a lot for a homeless man to pay for. I don’t think he’ll be able to pay for it. Yeah. He took a rather moderately sized piece of construction equipment and was just driving down sidewalks. Looks like he busted and opened a fire [01:59:00] hydrant when he hit it.

All sorts of crazy stuff. Do they just leave construction equipment strewn about in Florida with the keys in it? Or is this a pretty ingenious homeless guy? You know, hotwiring, the Bobcat. I don’t know. We, I think we’ve had other stories of construction equipment that’s gone on. Joy rides before. So must be a Florida thing.

You know the fix for all this, they need to have the construction equipment keys embedded into their hands. Oh, there you go. There. That’ll prevent them from being stolen again. You make another valid point. Problem solving tonight. That is why I am here. Another floor to demand took another piece of construction equipment.

Another piece. No, he was arrested on dui, so please don’t operate machinery and drive under the influence. Okay. But this person decided to drive a scooter into Walmart, so you know, it ended well. Was it gas powered electric or put, I wanna say that it was probably a [02:00:00] powered scooter. It says in the article it was.

Motorized. It says it’s a motorized scooter. Motorized scooter. But they do say the man was driving a Walmart scooter and had his open backpack sitting in the scooter basket. I didn’t see that. It was a Walmart scooter. So it was one of those Walmart shopping carts. Oh, I got, oh, they’re the mobile challenged people.

Sick is better in his backpack in the front. Scooter basket was an open bottle, a Smirnoff vodka. You could see it. So he was drinking the good stuff and he had glassy eyes, quote unquote. So is this on par with the lady that rode her suitcase through the airport? I mean, it’s up there, right? He crashed into the store shelves, get his backpack in the, in the basket on scooter.

Did he do more damage in the Walmart than the homeless guy did with the construction? It’s a great question. They do not say the damage he caused. So wait, those go around things. What did they do? Like two miles an hour? Like how [02:01:00] much carnage could this guy have created inside the Walmart? Probably just knocking stuff off shelves.

Everything’s strewn around. Crashing into shelves is a bit dramatic. It was probably bumping into shelves. Scraping into shelves, yes. Trading paint with the shelves. I really enjoyed the title of this Jalopnik article, which does not need any explanation other than the title itself. Nothing of value Lost.

As a Bud Light Truck overturns on a Kentucky Highway.

The picture is epic. I mean, there’s just Bud Light cans everywhere. The title got me and I chuckled, and that’s all you need to know. Nothing of how you lost it would’ve been hilarious if there would’ve just been like mad swarm of people like running out to like collect it. I know it’s not a fan favorite, but there are people that love it, so it would’ve been hilarious.

You see like people in the photo scouring to grab up the cans, the people that love it don’t listen to [02:02:00] our show. It’s only Yeager here, meanwhile in the Czech Republic. But wait, what? At first I was like, this is so dumb. And then, I watched the video and I was like, this is sort of badass. I think it’s super awesome.

We don’t talk about the Czech Republic. Can you find it on a map? What’s the best selling car in the Czech Republic? An F two car. Oh, what, what? Apparently a GP two former Delara former lunch car. So, okay. What happened? Apparently he has one and apparently he takes it onto the highway and cruises at a, at the speed limit, not doing anything crazy.

And somebody was doing him well, he, he did do a, well, he did a pull when? When the c r got out of his way, but the person videoing him was keeping up. So what were they driving? Another GP two formula car. Apparently the car sounds amazing. It does. It looks amazing. Oh my God, this guy’s living his best life and I, I [02:03:00] went to be him sort of like the cart Vader videos.

They came out a while back. If anybody remembers, I think they’re on Ebos World where that French guy goes out in the middle of the night with his shifter cart and starts driving through Paris and, you know, blasting people down the highway at a hundred miles an hour. We always say that cars are meant to be driven.

Thumbs up to this guy, right? Granted, Take it to the racetrack. Nah, dude. Take it to the the Walmart. It sounded like this is not necessarily the first time he is done this either or at least there’s somebody else who has done this as well. Yeah. I wanna know why there are so many of these decommissioned formula cards.

How do we get them in the wild? Yes. How do, how do we get them? I like the last line of the article though. It may be the only time you ever see an open wheel race car and a second generation new Beatle in the same place. And then I had to go back and look at the photo. I was like, damn, you right son.

There is a Beatle there. That’s awesome. This last one is amazing and I’ve saved it to the end and the title says it all [02:04:00] Woman used Wicca book of spells. To set car on fire. This was in Pennsylvania, not Florida. The Wick book of spells is just what she called her battery. I was gonna say, if it was an ev, was it really mind control powers of magic, or did it just spontaneously combust?

Apparently this distraught, probably drugged out woman went to a car dealership to confront a gentleman who she may had previous relationship with. There was a shotgun involved, but you know why use a shotgun when you could use WICE spells? So

she, I guess, attempted to use the spells. To set one of the cars and the lot on fire, but obviously that didn’t work. Spoiler alert people, no feds to anyone live your best life. Then she literally lit the pages on fire and threw it in the Ford focus and set the interior on fire. That’s, that’s one way to do it.

So wait, wait, wait, wait. [02:05:00] I get it now. She used the lit Wicca book of spells to set the car. Oh, the literal book. Oh, it’s not, not because the in didn’t work. It wasn’t for not trying. Okay. I think the article title is a amazing, so we can say the spell book actually worked. Yes. Technically that would be accurate.

It’s Jesus.

Oh my God. Well, on that note, it’s time to go behind the pit wall, talk about motor sports news. So first up, let’s start with Florida. Man. That’s so much fun. We could do some Florida man here, Southeast racing nascar. Actually, there’s been a video put out recently and we have a link to it that shows the evolution of Stock car to the current NASCAR racing series Seven generations of [02:06:00] NASCAR explained, even if you’re a NASCAR fan or you’re just getting to know that discipline of motorsport, I thought it was a really good watch because it brings you right up to speed on how it’s transitioned.

You know, you can go back and watch things like Lost Speedways that Dale Hunter Jrs got on Peacock, but I thought this was a good way to summarize all this and give people an introduction to NASCAR and show them the evolution. My goodness, it’s going on 60 years now of nascar, if not more so. I thought this was a really good wrap up for anybody who’s interested in diving a little bit deeper into the history of the sport.

But without further ado, I need to turn to my subject matter experts in the worlds of open car racing, especially Formula One. Let’s talk about what happened in August. Nothing cuz it had basically been a holiday. Well, there’s one thing we could talk about. What’s that? Daniel Ricardo is losing his racing seat for next year.

Oh, are you sad? I, I’m a little sad. He hasn’t really done much. He’s fell pretty hard from Grace after [02:07:00] leaving Red Bull and he’s had his string of really bad and unlucky years. I don’t know what is next for him, but apparently McLaren is buying out the rest of his contract and it’s a sad day for you. Is it Danny Rick fan?

Yep. So we will see if he ends up racing, maybe we’ll see him over in SRO somewhere. Well, he may go wherever ves going. Ves retiring, he’s going biking and all the stuff that Vel does. Buying old formula cars like Nigel Mantles, right? Yeah. So that’s two drivers out. Ves out. Danny Ricks out. Well there was drama around Fernando just out of the blue announced that he was leaving his race seat and jumping.

Who did he jump over to? Aston Martin joked there being that, you know, Stroll’s daddy bought him his seat and then metal retires. He thinks he’s gonna be the number one driver and all of a sudden Fernando, as in his seat, a lot of shuffling going around. There was a lot of drama around this Piri guy. And Alpine made an announcement that he was gonna take the seat and then two seconds later he’s like, I never said [02:08:00] that and blah blah blah.

So who knows? Yeah, butal Pietri is actually going to McLaren that I stop following after the initial drama. Nevermind. McLaren hopes to replace Ricardo with reigning Formula two champion Pietri. Pietre has been in the middle of a tug of war between Al p and McLaren, and his future will be decided by the FIA’s Contract Recognition Board next week, because I guess he maybe had a verbal commitment to Aine.

Nothing was really set in stone, and then he really wants to go to McLaren instead of Alpine. I don’t know. Yeah, it’s all fodder for drive to survive. So what isn’t fodder is what we alluded to earlier about all the Porsche stuff. We’re not sure if it’s gonna be a Honda powered Porsche, whatnot, but the F I A has approved the wording for the new regs when the new cars come out in 2026.

Basically the bluff, the bottom line up front is that the M G U H, the power plant that Volkswagen was gonna supply has been dropped and the F I A is pushing for, what they’re saying is quote, fully sustainable [02:09:00] fuels. The M G U H was supposed to be Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi’s way into Formula One.

Obviously they’re still coming. As we noted earlier, what I think is happening is, you know, these quote unquote, fully sustainable fuels might be a nod to Porsche’s synthetic fuel that they’ve been been developing. And so maybe there’s something going on there that’s complete. Speculation. That’s just my opinion, why we would do such a drastic shift from replacing the engines to going back to let’s find a different fuel source and keep the ice motors in Formula One.

I thought that was interesting, but we’re not gonna see what that turns into for a couple more years. Apparently the next Call of Duty update is gonna have one of the zones be. The Singapore Grand pre track as a battlefield. And so you’ll be fighting across the streets while Formula One cars are driving around.

Uh, why? I don’t know why, actually I didn’t look into it cause I didn’t care. But I, my question is, can you shoot the Formula One cars? So does that secure a win for Haas if you blow up everybody else? [02:10:00] Speaking of households, there was a video that is going around that has led me to the conclusion that I don’t need to watch drive to survive.

I just need to watch more of these mid-season recaps by this YouTuber. This is the funniest stuff I have ever seen. It’s like a one man video, but he plays the role of all the different drivers and their afex and their accents and some of the team owners like Christian Horner and, and all those guys. I mean, it was unbelievably funny.

I busted out laughing when he is making fun of the Ferrari and he is like, my car is on fire. My car is on fire. Like all this stuff and the whole Gene Haas thing. No, he’s hilarious. I think he usually puts out a video after every race. Yeah. Unbelievable. This is the first time I’ve seen this and it was just, I was in tears.

It was so good. We’re gonna post that in the show notes for anybody who doesn’t know what the heck I’m talking about. I don’t wanna spoil it. You definitely gotta check it out and you can search for him on YouTube, Connor Moore, and I believe he does more [02:11:00] impressions than just F1 racers too. So he’s got some other different kind of videos out there.

Switching to the world of sports car racing, two big announcements. IMSA has. Announced the new Sports Car Challenge series, which is gonna be part of the larger ims a weekends. They’re gonna feature LMP three as well as GT four cars, which are licensed through S R O, the cousin or sister organization there, or I should say that other series.

As we know, IMSA and S R O do go back and forth. GT four cars are coming to the IMSA big stage, so there’s big news on that. I’m really excited to see the Supras and a lot of the other cars that are in GT four coming to IMSA and running with everybody else on the heels of that. IMSA also announced early the Weather Tech Sports Car Championship schedule for 2023, and they’ve added some new tracks to the list.

Places like Mosport is back on the m a series. We haven’t seen that in forever, like feels like the Canam days, so there’s gonna be 11 races next year on the M S A [02:12:00] calendar. Really excited about that. So there should be some really cool racing action there. And actually, one more piece of news since Formula One’s gonna be in the next call of Duty, M S A is partnering with iRacing for their own eSports season.

SRO partners with the Settle, Corsa and IMSA partnering with iRacing. If you’re a fan of either or both. I don’t know what it’s gonna be like to get into the M S A eSport series, but I’m looking forward to some excellent live streaming and having the voice of IMSA commentating those races. As we wrap up the episode, we wanna touch on our local news.

Upcoming local news and events brought to us by collector car guide.net, the ultimate reference for car enthusiasts. We’ve got an important update. Collector car guide is now listening and promoting car, vehicle and collection auctions on their site. So if you’re looking for that latest piece to add to your garage office or den, check out the auctions.

Listen on collector car guide. And don’t forget, you can post your events on C C G for [02:13:00] free today. Details are on the site. So let’s see what’s coming up for September. The biggest and most anticipated VA event of the year is happening in September. Jamie ORs low show will be held on September 1st through the fourth in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.

This year makes the 12th annual Downtown Charlestown Bar show. The Radner Hunt concourse at La Goz is being held on nine 11 in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Dubs at the Gap sponsored by Audi Club Potomac Chesapeake Regions returned to Rocky Gap State Park one September 17th and 18th. And as we mentioned, C C G has started listing auction events on their site and there are all sorts heading into the fall months, like the Auburn auction on September 1st through September 3rd.

And tons more events like this and all their details are available over@collectorcarguide.net. Thanks, Brad. Now it’s time for our h hpde junkie.com Trackside report, what used to be the Northeast Cuatro region or the Northeast Audi Club is coming to nj MP in October. It’s gonna be a Monday, [02:14:00] Tuesday event, October 3rd and fourth.

It’s two days on Thunderbolt. They posted that in their most recent newsletter, and turns out a few of us, myself included, might be going. So I am definitely looking forward to two full days on Thunderbolt. And can I just say that that’s pretty rare cuz usually it’s two days on Lightning. It’s hard to get two days on Thunderbolt, so that’s a really good event for people to go to.

It is, and price-wise it’s a really good deal. It’s a full event, so students and coaches, all the run groups in between. So if you’re looking to take and have the ability to take some time off from work, it’s gonna be a good time at NJ and p. And Thunderbolt, in my opinion, is the more fun track. Everybody says lightning is better, but I don’t agree so.

But I like technical tracks. I wanna shout out again to GTM or Steve Ferman who now heads up H O D Southeast Region. He’s got two events left on the 2022 schedule. He’s got Carolina Motorsport Park on September the 17th and 18th, as well as Robling Road on October the second. So if you’re [02:15:00] itching to get out to the track this fall and you live in the Southeast, try out HODs Southeast region.

Headed up by Steve Ferman and we wish him the best of luck going into the 2023 season as well and look for more events to be added to the schedule. Unfortunately, in the month of August, Emera had to cancel its two day Summit Point, Shenandoah Circuit event. There was a bunch of different reasons, one of them being some folks came down with Covid and made us extremely short staffed.

So it got pushed off. And if you hadn’t heard, the September New York Safety Track event was also canceled and replaced by a one day at Pocono North on September the 17th. The last em a event of the season will be on October 15th at Limerock Park. So look for GTRs at both of those events coming up here in the fall.

In addition to that, PCA Potomac Region is in need of volunteers for their rock, the Summit Charity event at Summit Point Motorsports Park on September the 16th through the 18th. [02:16:00] So if you’ve got some extra time and you want to help out at Summit Point, please consider signing up and you can find all those details on PCA potomac.org.

In case you missed out, check out the other podcast episodes that aired this month. Andy Pilgrim racer, journalist, educator, and all around nice guy. We reconnected with Andy after several years of being away from ncm and he shares his epic motorsports journey with us. In confessions of a DeLorean owner, Don Wer from GSM Returns to break fix, to tell us what it’s really like to be a DeLorean owner.

A 26,000 mile ride took s r o driver, Joey Jordan the fourth on an epic adventure with his van Flaco, filled with stories of man verse, machine love, hate, and even some South American jail time. Be sure to tune in for Joey and Flacco’s. Excellent South American Adventure. Bill and Vicky Fisher, superheroes of the Grassroots Motorsports world, train us on all things in the podcast Garage Heroes and Training, and we returned the favor in a Boomerang episode as guests on their show in this double crossover episode.

Did you know that we were invited to be on the granddaddy of all automotive [02:17:00] podcasts? That’s right. The G T M team was featured on Mark Green’s cars. Yeah, part one is available now wherever you listen to cars. Yeah. Meanwhile, mark has agreed to return later this fall to be a guest on Break Fix and tell his story more details on that to come Thank you to all the guests that came on the show this month.

August kicks off to second half of season three, and we have some really exciting episodes lined up for you. If you’d like to get in contact with us, express your opinions, suggest show ideas, or ask our guests more in-depth questions, be sure to join our Break Fix podcast group on Facebook. Thanks, Tanya.

I wanna give a quick shout out to some new Patreon patrons and supporters for the month of August. Shout out to Jim w from the Volo Museum for kicking into our Patreon. He was featured on the show last month, as many of our listeners might recall, and to Mountain Region member Nicholas Matthews for signing up as well.

Remember folks, every little bit helps and we very much appreciate. All of your support. We have a couple anniversaries [02:18:00] this month. Rob Lores is celebrating eight years with G T M and Lauren Thompson from the Mountain region is celebrating two years. So congratulations guys for sticking with us. We appreciate it.

That’s right. And remember folks, for everything that we talked about on this episode and more, be sure to check out the follow on article and show notes available@gtmotorsports.org. As you all can tell, there are no guest hosts this month, but I will not be here for the drive-through number 26 in September.

So if anyone is interested in filling my spot next month, please reach out to us at Crew chief@gtmotorsports.org or hit us up on our new Facebook group so you can jump on and be part of the show. We really appreciate whomever decides to get on here and fill my size 13 shoes. And of course our co-host and executive producer Tanya.

Thanks. And all the members who support GTM without you and none of this would be possible. Outro. True. Oh true. Good job team. Good job. We fumbled through another one.[02:19:00]

Well here we are in the drive through line. Me and her cars in front of us, cars in back of us all. Just waiting to order. There’s a idiot in a Volvo with this bright son behind me. Hi Lena. The window and scream. Hey, what you’re trying to do blind me. My wife says maybe we.

If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org. You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call our Texas at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief gt motorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you. Hey, everybody, crew, chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted [02:20:00] to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag.

For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of Fig Newton’s, gummy bears, and monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

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From Sofa to Starting Grid: How Garage Heroes in Training Is Democratizing Grassroots Racing

What if the path to motorsports didn’t begin with a trust fund or a factory ride—but with a $500 car, a podcast, and a whole lot of humility?

That’s the ethos behind Garage Heroes in Training, the amateur endurance racing team and podcast duo of Bill and Vicki Fisher. In a recent crossover episode with Break/Fix, the couple shared their origin story, their misadventures, and their mission to make racing accessible to anyone with a dream and a driver’s license.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

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It all started with an email invite to a BMW autocross event at Monticello. Bill, ever the strategist, made sure Vicki beat him on the course – though she insists it was legit. That taste of performance driving sparked something deeper, but Monticello’s price tag was a dealbreaker. Enter the Everyone Racers podcast and its tales of $500 Lemons cars. Suddenly, racing didn’t seem so far-fetched.

They bought a used race car from a friendly team, showed up at their first Lemons event, and were instantly hooked. “We found our tribe,” Bill said. Volleyball was out, knees were shot, but motorsports? That was the new frontier.

Spotlight

From the great halls of their house. There are assembled three, who hope to one day be, the world’s greatest driving heroes. Created from the cosmic legends of the universe, comes our team Captain, The Vision, Bill Fischer. Their soon to be Wonder Woman, Vicki Fischer. Our Captain Marvel and head flight trainee, Jennifer Skripchuk. And our Batman – the master of tools, gadgets, and all things mechanical. Our mild-mannered soon to be billionaire Alan Danvers. Their mission: to fight injustice, share what is right and wrong, to get you out of your house and come out racing with them and serve all mankind. They are the Garage Heroes in Training team.

Bill Fischer –Leader of this motley crew.  Raced some when younger, not young any more.  First car 1984 Firebird.  Best/Favorite car:  2019 Mini Cooper JCW.  Worst Car:  tie 1974 Granada or 2009 Corolla S. Team nickname: TBD/The Vision Podcast

Vicki Fischer – Solid driver and obviously tolerant of our group craziness.  As a self professed “car is a car is a car” girl, she has come a long, long way. She even agreed to be a co-host of our podcast. First car 1974 Pinto.  Best/Favorite car: 2015 GTI.  Worst Car: seriously? the Pinto. Team nickname: The Bulldozer Podcast

Synopsis

In this episode of Break/Fix, hosts Brad and Eric welcome Bill and Vicki Fisher, the hosts of ‘Garage Heroes in Training.’ The Fishers discuss their journey as an amateur endurance auto racing team, sharing insights and advice for aspiring racers. They recount their experiences with various racing series, emphasize the importance of organization and preparation, and offer tips on how to get started in motorsports. The episode also touches on their podcast’s origins, format, and notable guests. Additionally, they discuss future goals for both their racing team and podcast.

  • Origin Story: Who/What/When/Where/How was Garage Heroes in Training formed? What’s it all about?
  • We noted from some of the pics on the website, looks like you’re Blue Oval fans? There’s a foxbody, and more importantly, a proper-CAPRI (not that rebadged nonsense from the ‘80s) in the mix. Why Fords? And how are they working out for you?
  • Successes/Failures in the enduro series you run? (LeMons most, Lucky Dog second most, AER just started, others upcoming– which?) Can we talk about the differences in the series, which to do like better/worse/why? 
  • Like our show format, it looks like you guys have different sub-arcs to the show, it’s not all just wrench-turning and mishaps.
  • What are some future goals for the race team, and for the show?

Transcript

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

Let’s set the scene. You, our loyal listener, are interested in learning to be a better driver and maybe even have aspirations of racing. However, you know virtually nothing about performance driving and motorsports. Well, tonight’s guests are an amateur endurance auto racing team hoping to show everyone that they too can participate in performance driving and racing.

They’re a relatively new team and are sharing their experiences of dos and don’ts with you. That’s right Brad. And some of you might recognize our guests from their super Friends inspired intro where The Vision and Soon to Be Wonder Woman Host Garage Heroes in Training a podcast which has recently eclipsed 300 episodes and covers all forms of racing, and as they say, hopes to be entertaining as well as educational.

So without further ado, we are honored to welcome [00:01:00] Bill and his beautiful bride, Vicki Fisher, hosts of Garage Heroes and Training to Break Fix Crossover part one. I’m expected to hear my husband. Welcome to Garage, take 423. It’s gonna be a long night. Quickest way to get your episode count up. You just have 15 intros and call it an episode.

Well, sounds like we know what we’re doing. Good thing not to fake. Great. Good to be here. So I’m looking at your podcast. I found it and I’m like sitting there going, this podcast is pretty good. So then I go and I, I’m looking through it and all of a sudden I’m gonna take that as a comp. I’m gonna take that as a compliment, by the way.

Yeah, well it should be. And you know, I’m looking at the podcast and all of a sudden I’m like, how is this podcast? Like 1027? I’m like, why didn’t I find this thing before? And then I realized it’s not one comma. Oh two seven. It’s 1 0 2 7. I think it was season one maybe. So I realized that A, I can’t read and I’m an idiot, and b, I hadn’t missed a thousand plus [00:02:00] podcasts of yours.

And I’m like, on, how did I miss a thousand podcasts? Cause I do a search every few weeks looking for automotive and racing related podcasts. And I’m like, a, how have we not met these guys at the track? And B, how did I miss a thousand episodes of a podcast? So anyway, you wanna know the Secret, but this is like a VIN number.

First number is the season number, the second digit specifies, whether it’s a main episode, a drive through episode, a special episode, whatever. And then the last two digits are the actual episode number. So there you go. See, we were grossly, uh, guesstimating our skills. So we went with GHI for the normal episodes.

We went with DWD for Dominated with Dawson, and then we have the W episodes, the way of our topic episodes. And then we purposely put in a four digit episode code. Like we’re gonna be here for at least, you know, A thousand episodes. Absolutely. We never thought we would be, but now we’re like a third of the way, the episode.

So I’m gonna, I’m gonna put you on the finish spot. I’m gonna put you on the spot. Favorite episode so far of break fix episodes So far, the [00:03:00] one that stick out for me are always the news ones because you guys don’t just do the normal news. There’s always something in there that’s like new news. Exactly, that would be the one.

It’s just generically, you guys always find something and I’m like, I didn’t know that. And I listened to several podcasts cause I listen at double speed or triple speed. So I, I go through them pretty quick. I must sound like Alvin and the chip mics then. Cause I talk pretty, it’s, you’re not the worst.

There’s a couple podcasts that I actually can’t do it to us. I can’t listen to him when he, I can’t be in the car when he does it. It’s hard. I had to put headphones on. It just gets my brain. I’ve got stuff to do. Well, we’ll relay the message to Tanya because she is the executive co-producer as we call her, of the drive-through.

She takes a lot of pride in putting those episodes together, especially those Florida man stories. I mean, I don’t know. She gets them from, and by the way, If you watch the behind the scenes uhhuh, we never get to see the Florida man stories until the moment we record it. Cause she wants that reaction and it really was absolutely awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. [00:04:00] So if you hear me laughing hysterically, it’s not because it’s real. I’m making it up. It’s for real. Just like every break fix episode, we wanna learn about your origin story because as we say, everyone has a story. So let’s talk about the who, what, when, where, and how of, how Garage Heroes in Training was formed.

How it all, how did it all get started? It’s his fault. It’s always my fault. It’s his fault. He started it. I did. So the long story, which you know, we have plenty of tape in the machine, so we should be good. The long story is exactly, we got invited through email to one of the B M W events and it was up at Monticello and it was basically turned into a, uh, a lead follow parade in a small autocross.

And being the wise man that I am, I made sure that she beat me on every single autocross. Oh, don’t, no, no, I beat you. Legit. It was planned. It was planned. Legit, legit, legit. I beat you. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. I spin it here. So riding Crut of the wave, I’m like, Hey, why don’t [00:05:00] we join this Monticello?

It looked like a great place. And she’s like, you’re smoking serious crack. That’s way too much money. So then coincidentally, I had started listening to the Everyone Racers podcast and they also have a television show, and it just so happened that they had their lemons adventure when they went to a race in Washington.

And it was a disaster. But the great part of the story is it was a great episode on TV and they said how it was a $500 car and I said, Hey Vicky, this is a $500 car. And she bought it so the door was open, I didn’t go with anything else and said, sure, this is great. And then we started trying to do this and we eventually bought a, a former race car from a a now friend team that races in lemons.

We go to our first race and on the way home I think we were both pretty much hooked. We used to play volleyball together and then we’d go to this and we’re driving home and separately cuz I was towing and she was driving with our daughter. You know, we were talking to each other and it’s like, wow. I think we found our, our tribe.

Cuz you know, my knees gave up on volleyball a while back [00:06:00] and when you get to a certain age, gravity gets higher wherever you stand. I don’t know what happens. It’s just weird away. Bowling was out, tennis was tough. We decided he falling apart. Yeah. You know, I’m a few spare parts away from a, a brand new chassis.

We just found out that it was really great. And then we knew nothing about the sport. We knew nothing about driving. We have videos to prove. We knew nothing about driving. We knew, we knew nothing about not anything. We didn’t have nothing about nothing. Right, nothing. So after our second race, we said this is so much fun and so entertaining and everybody’s so friendly, but it can be a little intimidating to get somebody to start cuz you don’t know the jargon, you don’t know the tools, you, you don’t know what you don’t know.

And the, the fear of the unknown makes it even more intimidating. Why don’t we start documenting what we’re doing and show people that literally anybody can do this? Cuz we went the first race, it was, uh, Vicki, myself, our son and his friend, 18 year old boys, which can only go wrong. And it did, but that’s fine.

You know, the second race, Vicky’s sister’s like, Hey, can I go, those do this [00:07:00] with you. And the team just gradually started to grow and then, you know, we did so well with one car at our first race. How hard can it be? Let’s bring two cars to the second race. So, you know, but a disaster. Yeah. And then we, you know, beat our heads against the wall and did like everybody else, but we started a podcast right after that.

It shows our progression from, you know, zero to hopefully heroes someday. As the logo says, we’re in training, we’ll always be in training and we’re just at a, a little better than just starting training level. We literally documented everything that went right, everything that went wrong, what to do and what not to do.

Yeah. I think that’s what it ended up turning into. It was like, this is what we did and it went horribly wrong. So don’t do this. Every time that we did this, it was like, okay, what did we do wrong? What did we do right. And then what can we do better for the next race? And then it just started to build off of that.

And then we started incorporating our stories. And then it just got really funny for a while. And that’s a common thread across the motor sports community, especially in the grassroots world, like we’re all a part of. I mean, you look at Jim Tramontana [00:08:00] with No Money, Motorsports is a very similar thing, right?

Change in parts in the parking lot of his apartment on his Miata. And that’s grown into another thing. And you see that across the board. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, I mean, we all, I guess, suffer silently in a way doing the same things. But when you’re starting out new, it’s extremely difficult to turn to somebody and go, now what do I do next?

How do I even get off the block? So I commend you guys for taking that step to say, look, follow us on this journey, and you know, we’ll show you where we’ve been and where we’re going. Mm-hmm. We were lucky in that we found everyone Racers podcast and we, we wrote a letter, well I wrote a letter to them and I think it had like 27 bullet points and each one had sub bullet points.

So they pick on me constantly about it, but they invited me on and said, Hey, could you represent somebody who’s trying to get into this sport? And I’m like, well, yes, yes I can. Cuz we were, we got along and for some reason they said, Hey, when you go to your race, cuz they live fairly close to us, meet us at the paddock and we’ll kind of shepherd you.

So the generosity of their team, which has been racing for 10 years and has won championships in races and virtually every award in [00:09:00] lemons for them to share that with us, to welcome us into a sport. And we were just some guy who wrote an email, we. Had no way of returning that, but we thought maybe the podcast could do that.

And since that time, we have gotten to a point, and we have done it a few times for some teams and, and taken them on their first ride with us. And we’ve done it a lot for a lot of the drivers that race with us. Almost all of ’em are friends. I don’t think we’ve ever had like a true arrive and drive that we didn’t know.

But we, we invite friends and we try and get people going. And we’ve gotten over, I think the last time I counted it was like 23 drivers into a race with our team. We call them our sister team. We kind of look at them like a 2.0. They kind of do a little bit of a higher level podcast than us, but our podcast is just basically getting you from your sofa to the racetrack.

As it says in the intro, it’s a, it’s a strictly a 1 0 1 and it’s actually harder to do that than when you’re at the racetrack. You start getting into it because, like Bill said, you don’t know the jargon. You don’t know what your buildup is. You don’t even know what your basic necessities are going to be because that’s not really taught.[00:10:00]

I think we actually did like a 10 part series on these are the basics to get you from your sofa to the track. What’s your basics on your car? What’s your basics of your paddock are, what your basics of your garage are. Basic things that you’re gonna need at the track. Basic safety gear, just so you can start your build of your team and get to your first race and have fun.

Mm-hmm. Cuz that’s the, that’s the most important part is, I don’t know that you’ll agree, but the most important part of our sport and the best part of our sport is you don’t have to win to have fun in certain cases with an endurance race, especially winning is being able to start. And finish. I don’t know, man, I gotta dry flat out for that $5 plastic trophy.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Well, you, you come to our team and I will buy you trophies just to get you this mellow out, man. So, you know, there’s, here’s a trophy. Slow down. We got a long way to go. So you mentioned before, I don’t know that it applies to humans in the sense of DC’s ship, right?

Replacing all your [00:11:00] parts to be compatible with sports, but you had a lot of things to choose from. I mean, you could have gone and played chess or, you know, yeah. I don’t know, make, make jigsaw puzzles or something. But why cars? Was there something that was always there lurking in the background about cars that you were interested in?

So I was, I was born at a very young age and in Alabama, I mean, what, what are we talking about here? I was, I was very, very small when I was born. The first job that I can remember, my mom was working at a toy company called Topper Toys, which used to compete with Matchbox and Hot Wheels. That obviously did a great job cuz they no longer exist.

So she would bring home little Topper toy. Hot Wheels. And you know, I had the Johnny Lightning case and that was basically based on Al Unser. So I was a car boy from very young, and I liked cars, but school, family work, things got in the way. So we kind of put things off. And then Vicki and I eventually got to a point where the children were old enough to participate with us, our oldest son and our youngest daughter’s getting there soon.

But they were at an age where they might [00:12:00] become part of it or appreciated, or at least tolerate it. And we had enough time and, uh, stupidity to do this. So we thought we’d give it a run. And, you know, how hard can it be? You know, famous last words. Yeah, yeah. You, you can make it as hard or as easy as you deem to be.

It’s kind of like we were talking to somebody today at work and he’s like, well, how expensive it is. I, well, I’m like, you can race, you know, a 1990s Miata or some other lower price car and your consumables aren’t very high. Or you can race a challenge. Ferrari dedicated full racetrack, so you can basically spend whatever you want to.

But on the low side, there’s, it’s not that bad. It’s like vacation. You can spend as much as you want or as little as you want. You still gotta have a good time. I usually answer that question cheaper than guns, planes, and boats and golf sometimes too. So take sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s so, it’s, it’s really whatever you wanna put in.

Racing is more than willing to take, but you have to control yourself, you know, a spec serious. There’s a limit to how much you can spend essentially, cuz there’s only so much you can do. But I know people who try to [00:13:00] win the spec series and they end up. Buying 10 or 12 motors and taking them apart and measuring everything and keeping the ones that they want and selling the others, that’s not really what we’re doing.

We’re we’re there to challenge ourselves and improve and get better. That’s the other thing we’ve done with the podcast since we started, was not only to get people started, but to help other people who are friends or soon to be friends. Cuz everybody in racing’s a friend, would eventually to get better.

So every episode I always try to have part of the episode where we give you some little, it could be significant or it could be this little nugget, or it could be this little tip, like using electrical tape on a harness to help everything get lined up when you’re putting it in so you can color code things cuz pit stops can suck when you start having to gripp around trying to figure out where’d the harness go.

You know, there’s things like that and little trips and ticks that we’ve picked up over the years doing things or learned from other friends and. Nothing is new, but we can share. And the other thing too is, is about our team. We’re really heavily focused on the journey more than we are on trying to race to get to that win, we bring people along, like Bill said, on that journey.

With that, [00:14:00] we’ve brought people into the sport that have stayed or have been interested in staying. And that’s another thing too, is that Bill especially has always been a way more the merrier. And just come along and enjoy this. We’ve never really been focused about the win, but we’ve been focused on our HPDs, our precision on getting better skid pads than Yeah.

Skid pads, you know, mini autocross. I mean, I, I mean, we would travel 10 hours to go to an h HPD e just so we can experience that track, and then we would, did you do it with or without music during the, the tow, I guess, triple speed podcasts. That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. Exactly. I, i out, we have a mind blowing like 12 hour tow to N C M, where basically we could get two radio stations and we opted to turn the radio off.

If anybody knows Brad, we didn’t talk a whole lot for that 12 hour stuff. When we would travel, we would travel with my sister’s rv. We would drive two cars and we would tow the third car [00:15:00] because we would go out as a family, as a team. We would do this and we’d do one away race, you know, from the very eastern tip of Pennsylvania.

We’d go all the way up into Michigan just so we can go experience gingerman. It would always be like smoking the bandit with this troupe because we would all. Be following the trailers and the people that were driving would shoot off and go get food and come back and, you know, everybody’s got radios in their cars and it was, it’s really kind of exciting.

Bill and Vicky, it would be unfair if we didn’t ask you some pit stop questions along the way. So since Bill talked about, you know, his advanced age, I would normally ask our guests, you know, what poster did you have on your wall as a kid? And in this case it’s probably a model, a Ford. So little, little after that, I know exactly what it is.

So I’m good. Oh, I’m ready. Is it, please tell me. Go ahead. What is the car faucet enough? Oh no. Yeah, whatever she was sitting on. I’m a cheerleader. I’m not that old. Thank you very much. I believe she was part of the Mustang two campaign. I’m just saying the malaise era. Fords, right? [00:16:00] There’s Malays there for sure.

It would be from the mid eighties to Ferrari. GTO O Oh was the 2 88. Exactly. I won’t say that it was a single. Picture of a car only on my wall at that time. But, you know, that’s fine for me. I, uh, I actually, uh, your Pinto? Yeah. No, no. Um, no. I’m actually the art girl. When I got in here, I was actually, we were actually doing the artwork on the cars, but I am the tomboy in my family, so it was just an artsy tomboy is what I was, and somehow I just kind of fell into racing with him.

But now I’m training to be the mechanic. So nothing wrong with that. No. You were the one who introduced us to, uh, top gear though. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Me and my sister are usually, were the ones that work on delivery until, you know, I took a turn into, we need a second mechanic, so I kind of fell into that role.

Richard? Jeremy. Jeremy or James? Who, who would you rather have a beer with? Jeremy. Jeremy or Chris? Oh, from New Top Gear. [00:17:00] Those would be the two for me. Jeremy would be hilarious. I think I would have the most fun talking to Jeremy, honestly. But anyway, I think the most interesting would be May, but I would also feel like, need to take all three please.

But you know, there’s a, there’s a test at the end of it or something. If you’re, you’re with James May, then it takes like 10 hours. Mm-hmm. Jeremy would be the one that gets you in trouble all the time. He’s that guy at the bar. Yeah. We noted from some of the picks on your website that you did not actually choose to race the Ferrari 2 88 gto, but instead you went with the blue ovals.

It looks like there’s a fox body. It’s close, you know, there’s a proper Capri, which is one of Eric’s favorite cars for some God awful reason. None of that rebadged nonsense from the eighties. Okay. Passes a fox body, but continues. So in a sport where everybody’s budget conscience is driving a Miata, Why are you all driving Fords and how are they working out for you?

Well, they’re not, those were early pictures. Those were early pictures, [00:18:00] yeah. See what you’re saying on racetrack? Dead. Dead, yeah. Or Ford owners repaired. Yeah. Very early on, the cars definitely had problems. Mustang still runs. Yeah, it does. It’s rough though. We’ve always had a struggle with the fact that it was a turbo.

The turbo, it was the one year GT turbo, not the s v o. So it was that one year in between. And parts are a bit of a bearer there, but what you’re saying is they run like factory new for Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And our, and our pork capri, just for the age of it, they had these really tiny transmissions. The links would just fall off.

The poor thing, couldn’t even handle the endurance. And people were just not giving them up because they were seven, you know? Was it, what is it? 77? 74? 70, 74. You can’t find the parts for it. And those that did have them were just like, you’re doing what with it? Uh, we don’t think so. So they’re not giving the parts up.

So we were going to do, uh, a full engine swap, transmission swap, rear end swap on the Capri. And we still have all those parts if anybody’s interested in, [00:19:00] in helping and or taking over the project. Cuz it’s above our pay grade at this point. We’re getting there, but it’s really slow to get to that point.

We have everything ready. We have the wiring harness good to go. We have all the parts sitting there mocked up. But, you know, not having ever built engine mounts and other details that we haven’t even gotten to yet. It’s a little past what our skill level is. Yeah. It’s, it’s something we’d like to do, but I just don’t know that we’re ever gonna get there cause we keep breaking the other stuff we use all the time.

So yeah, there’s that. But then we fell into a Chevy S 10. Ooh. Which, which I gotta tell you was the thing is like a Lego. It really is. It’s so easy to work on. We’ve been really successful with it, but we’re pretty much are outgrowing it at this point. So, um, what year? S 10, 2003. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, so it’s a 4.3 liter?

Mm-hmm. Or the four cylinder. Yep. Four, three. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So, and the car just runs like a clock. It’s just one of the difficulties we have is not buying the car, but selling the car. So I tended to buy cars and we had to downsize a little bit. So, [00:20:00] have you seen Eric’s driveway? It’s, I might, I might be close.

Yeah. I widened it. It’s helipad size for a reason. I’m just saying, my gosh. It’s, yeah. Instead of getting rid of cars, he just made his driveway bigger. A hundred percent true. Yeah. Instead of getting rid of cars, I got a second hanger at the airport. Yeah. So he legitimately did, but now we’re kind of cleaning house because the problem with hubby here is that there were a lot of recommendations for cars and he was buying all of them.

Yeah. So, so now, um, the Porsche came through and a Porsche is its own beast. I kind of looked at, it was intimidated by just the compactness of the engine area and how that was in there. And I’m like, I just. You have small hands. It’s fine. It’s Hans Small. Hans Tiny Hans. Small Hans. Yes. So we went through some Porsches, we went through some versions of the BMW Miatas.

We had the truck, we had the earlier versions of the cars of [00:21:00] the Ford Mustang and the Caprice settled on the race truck. And now we are into a 1993 Honda, which, ooh, civic. It’s a very cool little car. Now our team has to learn how to drive a front wheel. So yes, our specialty, no. Yeah, so, so I had to, I went out for my first race with it.

I did not get a chance to prep myself with it very well. But I had to keep telling myself when I was driving, when I was going into my apex, was that it is a pull, not a push. And once I had to keep memorizing that it’s a pull, not a push, is what the car is doing with the front end. So I was able to, to get on the gas earlier and not have to worry about spinning out in those certain areas.

There’s two rules to driving a fun wheel drive. Mm-hmm. Lift your foot to turn. And when in doubt, throttle out. That’s right. That’s right. I. Exactly. So that worked perfectly until it snowed about three quarters of an inch in one lap. Yes. When she was on the track and didn’t matter. I’ve actually autocross a couple Hondas from that [00:22:00] generation, and they are fantastic cars.

Unfortunately, in the autocross world, they are subject to the same downfall as Miatas, which means 2 75 square, and they look like little roller skate so they don’t mm-hmm. Handle exactly like the track cars do. That’s, that’s a hundred percent for sure. Mm-hmm. So is that all there is in the fleet right now?

Oh, he’s shaking his head no. No, I just sold my, uh, we’re divesting. Yeah, I just sold my Miata Turbo. It had a fly Miata in it. I was a little sad to see it go, but for that particular vehicle I was pigeonholed with it because it was two street for track and two track for street because sold it to a friend.

Sold it to a friend because of the age. I’m just at that point when I’d rather be in a more comfortable car to go, but I actually have a spec, one that looks exactly like it coming up behind that I’m building next. After I get all these other vehicles outta the way. Bill’s got a E 46 that he just had built.

We haven’t primed it yet. We haven’t had a chance to prime it yet, but that’s in the hangar, ready to go. We have an E [00:23:00] 46 M three for Daley? Yes. And Amiata 2019. And they’re HPDs. And we do those, those are kind of our, our light HPDs. And then we have a essentially a endurance version of a spec E 46 for endurance.

So it’s not technically a spec E 46, but we don’t care about hardware so as long as they let us go on a track, I don’t care. It’s not for like a lemons race. That’s more like a AR type of thing. Yeah. And And then we have the Honda Civic for our lemons car. We have a Honda Fit, which Vicky hates, but that’s okay.

She hasn’t run Sunday Cup yet. Life, which we will be doing. Yeah, shortly. Vicky’s gotta spec me out of coming around cuz she’s about to enter the higher level HPDs and maybe start doing time trials and time attacks doing her h HP three and four. Mostly with NASA Great Lakes. Having a cage car is always in our mind.

Preferred when you get to the higher levels. Mm-hmm. So you peaked my ears when you said fit. So that begs the question B spec racing. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Be spec and Sunday Cup. We’re taking it out. First for the, uh, lemons [00:24:00] rally up in, uh, the fail foliage, which is Boston to Boston, and I’m running it with my mom and my sister.

So that’s Won’t be first though. No. So you guys would probably be the only people to answer this piss stop question with a yes, which is, would you drive a Chevy Spark? It’s got wheels, right? Give anything a shot with wheels. Everybody’s like, why don’t you ride motorcycles? I’m like, because I would like them and I know what I do on a car, so I don’t wanna do a motorcycle.

Oh, that’s, that’s the same reasoning I have. That’s why I’m not allowed on two wheels. Exactly. So what are your successes and failures in the Enduro series you run? In spite of our lack of trying, we actually won a race one time in our class one C class for lemons racing. I don’t know what she’s gonna think her, I know what I think her biggest accomplishments are, but I think the most recent one for me was, uh, working my way to h HPD four and then getting my Ms F level to instruct her certification and, and starting to give back to everybody and, and going out and teaching as many people as I can.

It’s been fun. It’s challenging [00:25:00] cuz I always have one student dedicated for usually an H HPD one. Then we always have friends and teammates there. So I end up doing H HPD one h, HPD two H HPD three, and then driving some of those people in my h HP D four classes. And then at the end of the day, Vicky’s like, why are you so tired?

And I’m just like, so I didn’t get out of a car. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s kind of fun. I don’t know. What’s your accomplishment, miss Vicky? Are you proud of, do you have lots to be proud of? Well, or or biggest, oops moment. You know, biggest learning moment in there. Oh yeah. Ground moments. This is my favorite.

Always make sure that your tires are tightened with their lug nuts. Bill? Yes. Just episode six. Is it 69? 68. 68. Episode 68 on our podcast guys, go listen to it. It’s absolutely hilarious. Bill lost a tire on the race truck, but it ended up in such a fiasco cuz [00:26:00] it wasn’t on the racetrack, it was on the road.

Mm-hmm. And it wasn’t supposed to be on the road and he was trying to sneak it from point A to point B. Oh, I was told it would be fine. No. Yeah, it was less than fun. Yes. That that was short story. It ended up hitting a house after jumping, uh, armco house. Three bushes, a tree. It hit the house, but it didn’t just hit the house.

It hit the house right where the gas meter is and broke the gas meter. And the gas pipe. Oh, and then that was the beginning of the avalanche of incredible. Yes, because they had to. Dig up it up all the way to the street to repair it. Yes. Across the street. And, and for Bill, trying to get out there at like seven o’clock in the morning to kind of sneak this thing from like, into two towns over to a shop without having it registered to be on the road, it ended up having two fire trucks, an ambulance, it end up.

Yeah. And then we actually, the cop came late because he was really angry cuz he hit a deer with his new police car on the way in. So, [00:27:00] and this thing just went on, apparently the gas line was grandfathered in, so they actually had to dig it all the way up to the street to repair it because they went to go turn it off and they couldn’t turn it off because the thing broke off in their hand in the ground.

It was Wow. And actually at the very end of this whole scenario, as my husband keeps trying to call me and I, and I’m not available, To him to talk to me at the very end. He, the cop offered to give him a ride and bill’s like to where? Front seat or back seat. And he calls me at the end of it, he says the, the way that day went, as long as I’m not in a striped suit, I’m good the way he went.

So yeah, it was just an absolute fiasco. We have stories like that in our journey of this whole scenario with cars. I think that was our biggest UPS learning what it takes. What the difference between prepping a car for driving on the road and prepping a [00:28:00] car for a race and after a race twerking the lug nuts is the same, regardless.

Just wanna point that out for our audience. You, yes, yes. True. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That goes back to another problem we had was we had so many people who, none of us knew what we were doing, but we had so many people trying to help. We had to come up with ways, so many hands on the car that we didn’t, the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing that that’s, did you talk the lu nuts?

Of course. I took the lu nuts, but I didn’t know that somebody else had taken a wheel off and then not put. Them all the way on. So we got lots of knock to do. My big oops was the uh, car trailer falling off the hitch when I was driving down the highway. That was a joy. And it was nighttime coming outta New Hampshire all the way down to Eastern Pennsylvania.

I had lost all electricity in the back of the vehicle because it broke the plug. And as I’m sitting on the side of the road, everybody’s like, well, you don’t have the right ball for your truck, because our ball got stolen. And Bill went out and bought a ball for it, but it didn’t fit properly. We didn’t know that.

So it ended up, I hit a bump and the whole thing just, it lifted off the ball and it just starts skidding [00:29:00] behind me on its chains. I’m like, I can’t drive this any further. They’re like, well, we can get you so far. And then the people were still leaving lemons and you know, for the whole repair thing, it was like doing what they could do to help me.

And then my sister out of the blue, just. She’s in a whole different vehicle and she’s been gone. She just kind of pops her head around. She goes, Hey there. And I’m like, what are you doing here? And then of course, my brother-in-law is great at doing electrical work. So he’s sitting there, pulls the whole thing apart, repairs it right there on the side of the road in the dark, right?

And I’m just like, guys are, God said. But I’m sitting there panicking on the side of the road looking at this thing, and she’s like, hi there, what are you doing? And I’m like, God, thank you. It’s like the, you know, a beam of light as I looked at her face, like the sun had come out. Jeff gave you a ball, I think times.

Yeah, he did. But we couldn’t drive it because it was dark and it had no lights on the trailer. And I’m like, I can’t drive this thing without somebody possibly hitting me, or I’m gonna get pulled over constantly as I start going back from, you know, the next 300 [00:30:00] mile, 400 miles. I’m like, you know, what am I gonna do?

And I was like, oh, right. Speaking of trailer incident, knock on wood. Hopefully there’ll never be a third. I’ve had two incidents where, you know, you, you, on a Sunday morning you come back from the hotel and now you know. Mm-hmm. Now we do a lot more camping and you line your truck up with the tongue cuz you’re gonna eventually just hitch up and, you know, load your car or whatever.

Right. Then inevitably something happens, you pop a motor or whatever, and your friends are like, okay, we’ll help you push the car onto the trailer. Yeah. And at the second that the front wheels hit the ramp, somebody goes, wait, did you hook it to the truck and watch it? Oh. Yeah. And slammed down and luckily twice it has not hit my truck and destroyed the back of it.

So Ben Dawson, who does our dominate with Dawson’s with us, he’s a friend that we’ve never actually met in person. He did that, but the trailer stayed tilted and then started rolling. Oh no. Like through the paddock Towards the, towards [00:31:00] your wheels, yeah. Towards the building that was mm-hmm. You know, like, yeah.

Clubhouse. It was awesome. It, it had enough, it was done. Yeah. I think my wins to answer that question would have to be how much I learned in the garage over the last couple years of doing this. I’ve learned that I am a physical worker and not a desk worker. That’s where I find my most joy. I’ve picked up the mechanical stuff really fast and I’ve learned how to do delivery and painting vehicles now.

Just wrapping. Yeah, wrapping cars. Now I’m able to pick up on the mechanical stuff, like really fast. So now we’re working on fabricating and our next project right now is fiberglass. It’s like my happy place right now is in the garage. Like if I get a day off, I get to go down there. It’s like, you know, my mechanics come in in town too, so you know, even better cuz we can really bang the workout and we just.

We have a good time down there. I look forward to those days. You guys mentioned you race in a ton of different series, so can we talk about the differences in the series and which you like [00:32:00] better, worse, and why? I don’t know if we do a ton. We, we’ve done a couple, um, a few more than you. Yeah. So I’ve always had this idea, and I’m an engineer, so sorry, but I, I was gonna plot the fun factor versus the true racer factor.

Mm-hmm. And you can kind of plot the different series. In terms of what they stress and, and what they, what their characters are, right? So like when we started with the HPDs, we spent one year and we just sampled nine or 10 different h HPD groups to find out what we wanted, what was the right blend. And it’s the same thing with the, the racing series.

You can go to a series which is emphasizes the fun and not so much the racing. Or you can get some that are more intermediate on both, or you can get some that are, are very, very serious and very. ProAm racing type series. So you, you kind of gotta realize a couple things where you are in your progression as a driver and where you want to be.

And you may not start in the series you want to race in eventually. And you may get more serious with time or you may get less serious with time. And it just depends on where your [00:33:00] happy spot is cuz there’s different groups within the different series that go across. Cuz you know, sometimes you want to have a, you know, I want to see what we can do.

Weekend and sometimes you just wanna go and have a great weekend with some friends and you can find a series for that. So like lemons is kind of the default, not terribly serious Racing. Still good drivers and a lot of the impressions that people get are from old lemons races when they were kind of a joke.

Safety wasn’t anything but could be probably one of the highest levels, safety serious that they have just due to the cars that they allow. I kind of look at lemons like playing football with your friends on a Sunday. When you were younger, you go out there, you have a good time, and then afterwards you go have some beers and you just, you have fun.

There is, you know, serious play when your guys are playing, but there’s also people that are just, you know, I’m here to hang with my buds. And then you’ve got Champ Car, which is similar types of cars. They’re all car shaped as opposed to lemons. Can get a little fancy with the shapes, a little more serious, probably the same level.

And then the next series up, I, I think I probably put Lucky Dog there, [00:34:00] you know, if we only lived on the West Coast, they’d be like the perfect for us cuz they’re at the perfect balance and to fit our needs of serious racing, good driving and a lot of fun in a paddock. And Kathy runs a great series and, uh, unfortunately they’re mostly on the, the left coast, but whenever she comes East coast, we always do some and we’ve traveled out to race with her a couple times out west.

Next, you probably have something like a R. It’s a little more racy. Better cars tend to go a little faster. Some true race cars, there are some pro teams that are doing their practices there to get some more time and it’s cost effectively and racing’s quite good. Then you probably go with w r L would be above that.

And then imsa, I think I might have left somebody out there. There’s a, there’s a step in between imsa, W R L, that’s for sure. There’s, and that’s a, there’s sro. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep, you’re right. And then of course there’s Grid Life coming. We’re gonna go to our first two events. Mm-hmm. Maybe three events, if rumors are true.

We may go to three events this year, but Grid Life is, uh, been on a list and we, we think we, uh, like to have some fun there with the Sunday Cup and the H hpd. So we’re gonna go out there and, and bring our fit and go. Mm-hmm. Sunday [00:35:00] cupping, get Miss Vicky out there on the track a little bit for that. And then maybe some HPDs, and sometimes we might just go just to, you know, walk around with a microphone and a podcast and get a couple episodes with people we’ve talked to.

Yep. And maybe meet them in person and say hi. Here’s a shirt we owe you stuff for coming on, you know, thank you swag. Exactly. If you ever need a pitch hitter, you know, front wheel drive guy, just let me know. You know? Always all door is open, man. You just gotta let us know, cuz you know, we’re not terribly popular in terms of, you know, if you look at the world, there’s like 8 billion people in.

Most of them don’t listen. You know, with the four seats at erase it, they fill up pretty quick. Especially when, you know, Vicky never gives up one and she’s always looking for the the ladies team. So, you know, sometimes I get the boot, but that’s okay. That’s why I’ll just buy another car. Yeah. We’re actually, this next race we’re going into Njm P we’re putting in an all girls team and second time, yeah, second time.

The first time was quite interesting. I was a team mechanic and I had another girl who was. Savvy with mechanical work. I mean, not great. And the rules were for [00:36:00] our team was that we could ask for diagnosis assistance if we need assistance, but we had to put the hands on our cars, which we got it to about 85%.

Cause sometimes the guys just really wanted to touch a car. I’m like, no, no, no, you can’t touch a car. That’s the rule. But I gotta tell you, my girls, two of ’em, this was their very, this was her very first race and it was whoop whoop boo girl power till seven o’clock. I said, the work starts after dinner because then you gotta prep the car for the next day.

So I was like, this girl power stuff is not working right now. So this new race that we’re coming, they now better understand that we got paddock work to do. They stayed offsite. I, I think both of, you know, staying offsite, You know, after a day of racing, it’s, yeah, it’s painful. It’s ting come back the next day.

Yeah. And you know what, there were auto crossers, so they didn’t understand that for endurance racing that there’s a series of things that you must do in the evening to prep your car for the next day, especially if things weren’t going right. And of course at that point I had thrown all the shims in the, the driver’s side, so we had to go ahead and lay new shims in the car.

Steering shifts. Yeah. So we had some [00:37:00] issues we had to fix, but we got it done. Just like our show in a way. There’s two sides to it, right? There’s two sides to garage HEROs and training. There’s the racing side of this, which we’ve been talking quite extensively about, but I think I wanna circle back and talk about the podcast a little bit more.

Mm-hmm. So like our format, it seems like you guys have a bunch of different sub arcs to the show and maybe not everybody realizes that. And it’s not just about wrench turning and mishaps like we’ve been talking about so far. Why don’t you tell us about the show format itself and maybe some of your more notable guests and special reoccurring episodes and things like that.

And especially now after you guys are celebrating over 300 episodes. We did a, uh, a re-intro of ourselves for 300 episodes just cuz we realized that, you know, it’s been several years since we started and hopefully people don’t go back and listen to our first few episodes cuz you know, they’re. Oh, ours are tragically terrible too.

They’re so bad. They’re so bad. We can’t decide if our first podcast episodes are the worst thing, or our first on track driving videos are worse. We, they’re, they’re very close. Oh, the video. You know, I’ve [00:38:00] seen some shows and I, I’m gonna call them out like Sinister Hood. They took down a lot of their early episodes.

They kept some of the good ones in there, but I’m like, you know what? I’m not embarrassed. Everybody’s gotta start somewhere. And well, you know, I think if you do it in our instance, it gives people like, you know what, there is a starting point and we all were bad at one point. Yeah. There’s a realness to it.

You see the quality change of the quality of the guests change all of that. Right. So, and, and my, uh, comic book collector could not throw out any episodes, you know, cuz you know, I wouldn’t have a complete set. Exactly. Exactly. And what, what’s the trivia question? You’ve only missed one episode, so I’ve got you there.

I have not missed a single episode yet. Well, they, they recorded one while I was on a flight to Hawaii for work. So I just reschedule everything so then they can I know. Well, we didn’t realize we could get ahead so far and, and that that was, uh, episode two. I think so. So we started out prepl in the before times.

Yeah. So back in the day, you know, way back, we were essentially. Documenting our growth as a [00:39:00] team. Eventually we started having infrequent guests and we’re learning how to do podcasts and everything about it. We didn’t really have guests on that much in the beginning anyway. No, maybe, maybe once every couple months during the plague.

We weren’t racing as much as we wanted to. When we rapidly realized, it’s very tough to report on how we’re doing at the racetrack when we’re not going to the racetrack. So we started looking for not even leaving our houses. Yeah, pretty much we started looking for guests to help us and help our audience learn about a topic.

So to get a little better, cuz we had some downtime and we thought we’d, we’d assist with that. And we have questions, so if. We think of a question we somebody else has as well. We’re not that smart. So we’ll go find somebody who can know. So if we know nothing about shock, so we’ll go find somebody. Mm-hmm.

You know, uh, who knows something about that. Or we know nothing about anything. We just, what’s it like to run? We’re just educating ourselves. Right? And hopefully our audience will get better and learn. So then it turned into, it’s kind of a blend right now where we’ll do infrequent episodes about [00:40:00] our team, and we do mostly guests.

The guests, uh, episodes are kind of an intro to the guests with some history, so that. They uh, can be known by our audience cuz some of our audience is brand new and they may not know who Gerard the Stig on American Top Gear. They may not know who he is or some other race drivers or some people that are well known, but you know, we didn’t know.

So we’ll do an intro to kind of get our audience familiar with it. Then we’ll go into the topics, which are kind of be one or two, and then we’ll end an episode with like what we call the fast and furious story time questions, which are like a series of questions that just go on and on and on and ask.

Absolutely stupid little trivia things. Sort of like our pit stop. Exactly. I always wanted to have the episodes have something that would help somebody get better. So we eventually we met. Ben Dawson at one of our podcasts with, uh, Raymar, and we just kind of hit it off and, and he’s a really good driver and he’s also an instructor.

And we said, Hey, would you do a, a segment? We started brainstorming. We’ve ended, ended up coming with, with dominating with Dawson. Cuz the big joke about lemons is always we’re gonna dominate. [00:41:00] So, you know, we thought it was funny and then we were gonna do one of those every episode, but our episodes can go long.

I mean, we’ve gone over three hours. It’s not for the lighthearted. So when you start doing that, and then you start doing a dominated, but Austin, which was originally gonna be like a five or 10 minute thing, but then we start digressing, which is basically the same word if you look in the dictionary under digression.

There’s the word podcast.

So the episode started creeping up to where they were averaging like two and a half hours. So it was like, oh, wait a minute, why don’t we have a normal podcast on Monday? And then we’ll have Dominat with Dawson’s on Tuesday. And then if we have more, if we have a W episode, cuz we’re garage heroes in training named after superheroes.

So we start recruiting movies or pop culture things. So we’ll have, it’s, we love our superhero movie. We had to have the boots. Yeah. So you know, we’re gonna have one coming out on, uh, recent Dr. Strange Multiverse, man, this movie. We’ll have one of those and, uh, you know, we try to tell you in the title what’s coming.

So if you don’t care about Dr. Strange and it says, woo, Dr. Strange, you can skip. [00:42:00] We’ve done as many as eight episodes in a week because we did, uh, one where we followed the a lemons rally, or we were supposed to do one for the, uh, one lap with the Sunday cups. We were trying to get those guys, but we couldn’t track ’em down.

And, you know, schedules. So we’ll do series all the time. We did a GL LTC series with Grid Life. Tried to get as many grid life people on there and see what GL LTC was. Cause that’s kind of like one of those bucket list items for me is to eventually get to where I’m not dead last in grid life for G ltc, that would be nice.

I have the car, I just don’t have the skill. We’ll work on it. Mm-hmm. And then we do our fast and furious questions because we just think they’re fun to figure out a little bit more the person, about the person in general. And they find it fun too because they’re asked, they’re, they’re kind of reliving some of their history on the podcast, which is pretty cool.

You’ll know them soon enough. You too. Yes. Notable guess as I look through your catalog, people like Ross Bentley and Randy Popes and Mike Skeen and others, even on your trivia episode, the 300th episode, part of the questions were, you know, who’s been on the show the most and who was our first [00:43:00] guest, and things like that.

So, quite the list in the catalog of 300 episodes to go back and review and, and hear those interviews. So anybody you wanna give us a sneak peek, maybe a little spoiler or somebody else that’s coming along down the line? Anybody knows us. I mean, come on. I mean, you know, once when we started the podcast, I, I sat there and, and you know, I think Vicki and I talked about our team for weeks trying to figure out what the name is.

And when we started a podcast, I, I sat there and said, looking back after we’re done or have done this podcast for a few years, what would be cool people to have had on the podcast? And, and we’re probably close to halfway through our original list, you know, some of the people who have said yes, were shocked with, and some of the people who we thought, yeah, that would be a nice one to start with.

They, they don’t even respond to us. It really varies. And the, the thing that I find that’s incredibly surprising and satisfying is some of the bigger name people that we’ve had were the easiest and the most welcoming. Like mm-hmm. When you have in training in your [00:44:00] podcast name, the ultimate guest for you would be somebody like Ross Benley.

Right. And we called him up and said, we’d like to celebrate our hundredth episode with you because you know, you’re kind of what we’re trying to do. He’s like, sure. And then he had so much fun. He’s like, he comes on every 50 episodes now. Like every single time. So you know, somebody like Ross who’s, you know, world renowned racing coach, author, great speaker, he’s got more than enough things on his agenda that he doesn’t need to talk to our little podcast.

But every 50 episodes, like Clockwork Ross is on there and he’s pretends to have fun, happy to be, I think he’s happy to be there. You know, he fakes. Sounds like he’s happy. So I think Randy was a guilt trip cuz Randy Post we had on there the first time we were out in a lucky dog race in Portland and he had always wanted to run the car’s.

So Nice. We were renting. Nice. He’s, yeah. And seats dealer, but, um, seats dealer. That’s what he is. I’m a metrics guy. So we figured we’ll let Randy go out in the car and we’ll know what the car can do and then we’ll [00:45:00] see what we do relative to that and we’ll see how much we need to do. But it was a rented car.

It was, it was for four laps That was built in a week? Yes. For four laps and then it blew up. So Randy blew up our car. Not any fault of his, but you know, when Randy’s in a car, he is gonna get the most out of it. So he pushed the car to the limit and we found it just a little bit more. Just so you know, Randy will drive in your car if you ask him, but you better make sure that your car can handle it cuz he will burn your car if you are not careful.

You wanna find a weak spot. Randy’s your guy, he’ll help you with, set up everything. He felt really bad that the car broke cuz we had flown out to Portland for the race. He’s like, is there anything I can do? I said, you know what’d be awesome is if you came on the podcast cuz you know, you’re, one of the, the reason my son’s into racing is Randy, you know, head-to-head is one of my favorite racing shows of all time with him and Jason and uh, Johnny, two guests that have said yet, but haven’t come on yet.

They’re coming. So he came on and it was great. And then I realized in a 45 minutes into the episode that the, um, microphone had, um, disconnected and we had the laptop [00:46:00] sitting on the other side of the room and it was recording through the laptop speaker and there was nothing I could do about it. And I was, oh my God.

But Randy’s such a nice guy. He came on again to do it. You know, he’s been on three times. I think so. And you know, that’s actually a great segue in the fact that prepping for a podcast and doing all that post work isn’t too different than the prep and paddock work that it takes mm-hmm. When we’re at the racetrack.

What are some tips and tricks, things you guys have learned over the years that would be beneficial to somebody that’s. First starting out, getting into this hobby. There’s so many things that you have to do to run a race team and to run a race weekend. Could be an H P D weekend, could be a racing weekend, could be anything.

You’re going to forget something, and nothing drives me bad here than forgetting something and then needing it through. Lots of pain on my part. Mentally. Self-inflicted pain, we have checklists for everything. I have a checklist for an H HPD weekend. I have a checklist for packing for a race [00:47:00] weekend. I have packing lists for the toolboxes that we have.

We have packing lists for the trailer. We have packing lists for the paddock and all the food prep. We have lists for each night, what we do to the car to prep for the next day. We have whiteboard for scheduling the weekend. With mm-hmm. Things that we need now we call it the runner. Somebody has to go out and get us apart or go out and get us brake clean.

I think Alan lives on brake clean. He goes through brake clean, like it’s nobody’s business. We get our driving order. We know who’s gonna do radios. We know who’s gonna do the primary mechanic. We know who’s gonna do all the different steps that are a part of the team who’s gotta prep lunches and dinners and, and then organization.

Exactly. I mean, he said he was an engineer. Are you sure you’re not in the aviation industry? I mean, do you have a checklist for checklist? It might as well be a nasa, I mean, you, you don’t subscribe to the whole, just run it until it breaks and then you know what’s broken. You can, the most expensive race you have is the one where it breaks on the first lap dollars per mile.

You, you didn’t do very [00:48:00] well that weekend, so, you know, we aren’t, but how many smiles were in that mile though? Exactly. Well, it’s only one driver. Well, there’s only one. Only one driver don’t concern ourselves terribly with how the race works out, especially endurance racing. And we don’t care about winning the H P D fastest lap.

True. But we do care about the amount of time and energy and prep that we’ve done to be ready to get the maximum enjoyment out of it. And you know, the biggest thing we had when I went to our first race even, was I wanted to make sure that everybody got in the car. And then once we did that, the rest of it was easy.

I do do a lot of work with nasa, so you know, I’ve stolen things from them. And we share our lists with everybody. If you find something better or if you find something that’s missing, just let us know and we’d love to update our list. I think I’m on, it’s either version 56 or 57. He’s got master lists and But they work the, if you use them, the structure of the team is that Bill is our organizer and team leader.

He will go into the garage and do a couple things, but Bill’s tendency is [00:49:00] to, I always tell him, I says, you bring a sledgehammer when you need a screwdriver. You’re just that kind of guy. Faster, him doing the higher level for our team, which is the ordering, the parts, the structure, the organization. I mean, our tool cabinets literally have slots for our tools.

So we know when something’s missing at the track. You lose stuff at the track. You’re right, regardless, you’re still gonna never find your 10 millimeter socket of what We have so many 10 millimeter sockets. So in each, in each tool cabinet, we have four tens and twelves. 10. 10 millimeter sockets in each size drive, so we won’t have that problem.

And we have spares on the side. He was always the document person on our team, and I was always the paddock girl or the garage girl. He was supposed to be doing cars and whatnot, but somehow our roles got flipped. So now he’s got my job and I have the job that he was intended for, and I think we’re happier that way.

But he’s very good at what he does and he keeps our team moving forward. And because he’s [00:50:00] a, he’s basically being the engineer, he’s a systems person, he relies on systems. Our garage now has functioned to constantly make things easier or better or more efficient. That’s how he operates with us. And we don’t forget anything.

Ever the call, except when, right. Right. And then you gotta run to the hardware, you gotta run to the store, you gotta run out to the auto store. We’ll drive back to Scranton. Yeah. And come get it. And then go back to pit race. That sucked but happens. Yeah. But yeah, he’s, he’s really good at what he does. I do have to say.

But tips are I would have to say or lists, uh, I don’t know. Do we have them on our website? Are they available or can they be? We do. It might be like a, an earlier version, like 30 something. I don’t know when the last time I updated it is. Even when it comes to checking your car before you get it to tech, basic stuff you need to do on your car.

So, um, a story for the winner. Those really help. And even how to pack a paddock, like I said, just organization. Organization, if you can be organized at your race, you’ll have a much better race. And that includes [00:51:00] paddock, that includes, you know, making sure that your team is properly fed and hydrated because they will be happier people if they don’t have to go running around trying to find food or trying to figure out where their next meal is gonna come from or who they can bum it off or somebody’s gonna run out and go grab a pizza at a game is stronger than our driving game.

Always has to. Yeah, we have a very strong paddock game right now, so come eat with us the next time we’re at the same. Yeah. But yeah, definitely organization is strong. Has to be strong. I mean that’s half the battle. You can be one of the slower cars, especially if you start talking endurance racing with classes you can be.

Easily one of the slowest, if not the slowest, and still win the race. Just cuz your car just keeps going round and round. Speaking of the slowest cars. Yep. We’re right here ma’am. What should, what should I buy question. What should I buy as the starter track car? Let’s answer to this with the two different cars.

Let’s say one option is an h hp d e car. Oh, okay. And the other is, uh, a race car for a e r, not lemons because you can go [00:52:00] out and get a, uh, Chevy Malibu and you can run lemons all day long. All day long. Well, no, not in the Chevy Malibu. You won’t run all day long. But that’s, that’s a different story. That’s not your fault.

I would recommend the H P D E car first because I’ve seen people hop into a car that is an a e r car and it might have been more car than they could handle. Unless you have those basic skills, then yes. But our recommendation, I mean, through our trials is that, my opinion if you’re going to buy a car, is to buy one that’s already been built.

And used, and then you can modify, modify it, you know, and make sure it’s easy and affordable. Hondas are good, Miatas are good. They’re simple to work on something that’s not complicated and that already has a roll cage in it and has basically the structures that are already in it. Safety systems tweak.

Yes. Yeah. You can always tweak it and make it your own, but at least when you’re starting out in a race, you really don’t know what those big basics need to be, to not have to worry about the intimidation of starting from scratch. When [00:53:00] you haven’t done this before, it’ll be harder for you to even get to the track unless you have somebody that’s in the know.

So we had a rule when our son was able to get driving and we had a certain prescription for what that car should be. We disagreed on how we got there, but we wanted. 200 horsepower or less ish. We wanted a manual transmission to keep them off the phone. We wanted as much safety as we could afford to buy safety systems.

So we ended up getting him a Toyota 86, which is a great car for him so far, with the training that we did to, to help him learn how to drive, knock on wood, knock on metal, knock on anything. I come fine. No incidents, no accidents, no tickets. Life is good. We told him, you know, go have fun on a track, but on the street people don’t know how to drive.

Take care of yourself. Don’t, don’t die. Something similar, I think would be a proper H B D card to learn, because I don’t care if you drive a hundred thousand miles a year and you as part of your job or you drive just. Back and forth to the grocery store. You may think of yourself as a great driver, and you probably are from a road [00:54:00] perspective, but driving on a road has nothing to do with driving on a track.

Assume it’s like a totally different sport just because the, the utensil you drive is different. So think of a car that’s something along the lines of that you like, 200 ish horsepower. Judge for yourself. Change your brake pads, change your brake fluid, and go have fun. Just make sure it’s safe. A R car.

The car of choice right now seems to be a A BMW E 46. Mm-hmm. Could be some type of Porsche Cain, could be some type of Mazda Miata. It really depends on your budget there. Especially if you’re new. We always recommend buy a car that’s already been built. Mm-hmm. People sell them. It’s not that they’re bad, it’s that they chose to do something else or they chose to get out of the sport, or they graduated and went to a higher level.

Higher they have run their car D Different class. Yeah. Different class. You know, I want to go run a spec series. There’s nothing wrong with running a spec series car and you find out that, you know, you put all this money into a car that doesn’t fit anywhere and you, it’s great for endurance racing, but you wanna go do spec racing and time drops.

Mm-hmm. People just change and. Use what [00:55:00] they’ve done and then modify it. I think that’s the easiest way, especially if you don’t have the experience and expertise to build one from the ground up. And if you’re buying somebody else’s race car, what is the resource of choice for you to find those cars? I’m assuming it would be racing junk.

Let’s bring a trailer. Bring a trailer. Didn’t you know that? Oh, yes, yes, yes. Because I’m gonna spend $450,000 on my Acura Integra type R My favorite place to go is Vicky doesn’t know.com. And I thought it was Take all my money.com. Isn’t that the other one? The inner debt and, and then you pay for the cars that, uh, Vicky doesn’t know this bank account.

Yes, yes, yes. I’ve had cars show up on trailers and I did not know they were arriving. And she was less than pleased. I was less than pleased. Yes. I’m still paying for one of them right now. Not, no, not enough fiscal sense, by the way. Just, just in case that wasn’t, that wasn’t clear. Bathtub is getting, Awfully awfully lonely.

Um, as I sleep in there racing, junk’s a great [00:56:00] one. If you are fortunate enough to know people who are involved, just letting them know, Hey, I’m looking for, uh, you know, something to do in this series, or something to do in that series, or, or, I’m looking to just get into it. And it’s amazing what you can find by word of mouth.

We have friends who race with us and you know, I was saying, we’re probably gonna get rid of Vicky’s car. And they, they helped us by finding somebody else that we knew that was looking for a car for them and their daughter to learn on and for him to have fun in. Facebook marketplace isn’t a, isn’t a terrible place either, especially if it’s like spec E 36 spec, E 46 Spec Miata, things like that.

Spec cars are one of the few race cars that the pricing doesn’t seem to go down. You can get your money in and your money out and not take a bath. Building a car, you tend to way overspend what the end value is, so let somebody else do that. It’s not as much fun and maybe not as cool to some, but if you’re trying to be fiscally responsible, which using that word in racing is kind of funny.

If you try, you know how to make a [00:57:00] fortune in racing. Right, exactly. Start with a bigger one. Yeah, with you there. You know, that’s the best plan. Usually we’re dealing with people who are fairly new and fairly early in their career. That is somebody we wouldn’t recommend. Build your own. We’d recommend get one.

Maybe your second car or third car. Don’t do what we did. So I think I would dovetail off that there’s a couple things. Racing junk is a great place to start. However, asterisk caveat, make sure that whatever you buy off of there, whether it’s a spec car or not, comes with a log book because a car with a log book is worth its weight in gold.

You can get into different series. If you decide you don’t wanna do endurance racing and you want to go to NASA club racing or S E C A or something else, the car’s already certified right after that point. You just gotta follow the rest of the rules and go from there. Mm-hmm. I think I would diverge a little bit from the build versus buy.

I’ve always attested to build because I grew up in a household where we swapped a lot of cars. We did a lot of crazy projects. We’ve had cars and magazines, [00:58:00] stuff like that. So I find those projects to be a lot of fun, and I take a lot of pride in what I’ve built. So I know there’s a. There’s a lot of petrolheads out there that are into that, and I don’t want dissuade them.

I don’t wanna say yay. Oh, no, no. But understand it’s a, if you’re a petro head, then definitely if you have the skills to do it, you can do that. You might be spending more to do it than what the car is worth, like Bill said. But if you enjoy doing it and you have skills on doing that, then yes. But I mean, our audience are people that are just like literally on the sofa and they don’t know anything.

I got you. I got you. You know, I was, and that’s what I’m saying for those people, you know, don’t try to start from scratch if you don’t have what you need. Hey, comma, asterisk, caveat on that one is though, if you are going to build something, take the time, and I know it’s a cure to insomnia, but read something like the Global Competition Rules from S E C A and look at a class that your car fits in and build to the spec.

Save yourself the money [00:59:00] and the time that you’re gonna waste like I have over the years, proving that certain parts are great for the street and not for the track. And then eventually I should have just read the manual, right? R T F M. So it’s really important that these sanctioning guidelines exist so you can build towards them and still have your.

You know, reliant Robin Spec car that you wanna build. If that’s what gets you up in the morning, you can still spend the money. You can still have a lot of fun building, but make sure that you’re building towards a goal. And if your goal is to go racing and not just a flashy de car or something like that, Make sure you’re building towards a spec of some sort or some sort of class.

And I’d like to recommend one more thing. Go to a racetrack and go visit first, so you actually can see what people have done to their cars. What’s inside the cars? Ask questions. People are so friendly at the racetrack. You can walk into a paddock and ask a question probably more so not during the race when it’s actually happening, unless it’s a stalled [01:00:00] paddock.

But definitely after the race, they are the nicest people and they will answer any questions that you have. Take pictures so much like we talked about driving and driving on a track as different sports. When you say people who work on cars, the work on cars and the work on a race car and prepping car are very different.

Mm-hmm. So be very careful that you’re not trying to do more than your skills would allow. Like just because you do your handy maintenance and stuff, that doesn’t mean you can build a roll cage. You’ve gotta be careful with what you’re trying to do. And sometimes, especially with the safety related items, look to either.

A professional organization or a professional service center that will do that work for you or a very competent team that you trust because you’re literally trusting your lives and your family’s lives and your friends’ lives in that system. So those are things you gotta be careful of. And the first car, to me, even if you are very mechanical with lots of experience, I would still lean towards first car, buy a car.

And [01:01:00] that’s not diminishing the interest or the skill that you may have, but you learn a lot just by doing and trying it and seeing like, oh wow, that this car, the, uh, cage, the bar and the door comes way too far down and way too far in. And I hit my head whenever I get in and I can’t get my luxurious mammal friend who’s on my team to get in and out of the car easily.

And if there’s something goes wrong, he’s gonna be very slow, or the seat doesn’t go far enough forward for my beautiful bride. You’ll see things and you’ll learn things and as you learn things, then that second car I think would be easier, especially if you are mechanical, cause you’re gonna constantly tweak that first car.

Or you may start over with scratch. We bought the Honda, it was fully caged race prepared, raced in NASA’s sprint race. We converted it to an endurance race and then we found out that we didn’t like certain things about it. We took the entire cage out and built a new cage. It wasn’t what we wanted. We wanted to be what we view as proper.

So as we get close to wrapping up our segment here, bill and Vicky, I think we gotta hit you with a couple more pit stop questions. And I think it would be unfair not to ask you guys one of our classics, which is, [01:02:00] and don’t answer at the same time. The sexiest car of all time, alpha Rome. She won’t name a model.

She won’t. No. You know what? Jerks not her thing. No. Pretty red one. No, no, no. Not, no, I’m sorry. The Aston Martin. I always like the old Aston Martins. Like James. James Fond Aston Martins. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. DB five s. Okay. Yeah. I don’t know model names or anything like that, but I’ve always thought that they were just like, well, you can go with animal, mineral vegetable, or, you know, it’s, yeah.

She can draw it. She can draw it for you. Not a problem. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. But you know, she doesn’t know the word. We have a segment in Dominat with Dawson sometimes We have what we call the one oh one jargon segments. And Vicky is the entire reason why we have it. I don’t know my jargon and it’s some acronym I’m still learning.

Yeah. You know? Yeah. I, I’m not from a car background. Nope. So how about we expanded for Bill? Mm-hmm. Since, you know mm-hmm. Probably more models than I do. And, and take that as a compliment. Take that as a compliment. We’re gonna give you the three car garage question, or the [01:03:00] million dollar person question.

Mm-hmm. So in your three car garage, what would you park in it? Do I have a budget? Uh, no. That’s why it’s the million dollar person question. You spend whatever you want. I’m at three and a half just to start, cuz I’m gonna get my Ferrari gto o going cuz you know, I’d rather have one of those. Wow. So taco truck?

No, that’s Jennifer. We do this question a little differently and you’ll be subjected to ours. Don’t worry, it’s coming. I think what I would do is I would get some type of retro mod 77 trans am. So I still look smoking the bandit on the outside, but it actually drives well and has acceleration. That would be a unique situation for that car.

Ah, let’s see what else I, I’ve done, I’ve done that. I, I drove a 400 horsepower one. I still leave it on the list of Never drive your Euros. Oh, no. See we had a, we had a 75 Camaro in the family. I was too young to drive it, but that was fun. I don’t necessarily want the horsepower. I have a self-imposed limit for track cars.

Like I don’t really care about going fast. Like the car that came to [01:04:00] mind was, I wanna get a McLaren F1 in these three cars, but it’s so fast you can’t really get to the limit until you’re going really fast. As opposed to, I drive a anem out of 2019 and the limits are much lower and the fit’s gonna be even more lower.

Recently we had a M two 40 I B M W, great car accelerated, well turbo. No problem. Tons of power, but I couldn’t really have fun in it and not worry about going to jail. So there’s a limit in, you know, street car versus race car kind of thing. Anyway, I gotta pick another car, don’t I? Hmm. Yeah. Um, and we’ve had some really cre and, and as you guys know, fans of the show, we’ve had some really creative answers over the years mm-hmm.

As to what people are shoving into this garage mm-hmm. And how the garage is configured and is it on an island and, you know, all sorts of fun stuff. Let’s, let’s go with bay. Think Vicky would, Vicky would love to have the Capri done the way we had scheduled. We just don’t have the skills to do it. I think that would be fun for her.

Mm-hmm. Beautiful car, by the way, I love those things. European Mustang, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. I think like every [01:05:00] person who’s in the cars, it’s gonna change every day. And right now the one that that’s intriguing me is a, a race prepped, classic. Mini, original body or new body. Yeah, no, the old ones.

I think that would be a ton of fun. Those cars can embarrass some pretty good hardware out there on the racetrack, so that’d be kind of fun. And I give you your front wheel drive cuz you are gonna have to come out there and make sure it’s right for me. So I need your help. Hey, any, any day of the week, it would be unfair not to ask you guys your opinion on what we call the evolution.

So what do we think about EVs and EVs at the track and just electric vehicles in general? I think they’re coming along. I think they’re gonna be able to keep up, but I just don’t think that they will be able to sustain. I mean, I’ve seen people run them. I think there’s just been a couple, but I don’t know how they would manage an endurance race.

No hot swapping of batteries yet. I’ve coached in a couple Teslas, so I have opinions about them too. Mm-hmm. But Bill, what do you think? I like light cars. I typically like light and small cars. Do you have a lotus tattoo that we don’t know about or I would, I would really, I really want to drive a lotus. I haven’t done that yet.

I’m, [01:06:00] I’m waiting for a student to have a lotus, so if any students wanna come my way and request me, you know why you would do that? I have no idea, but I’ll definitely take that. If I can get my, uh, mutant head and helmet into your car, I’d love to get in there cuz. Double XL helmet man. Too much brain. I’m six four and over 300 pounds and I’ve driven a lotus.

So you, you’ll fit. Okay. Sounds great. And that’s Brad’s rule. If he fits, he sits. He drives. That’s, that works for me. So right now we’ve got a weight issue in my mind for EVs. Acceleration is not the problem. Trying to figure out how much trouble I wanna get myself into. The environmental impact of an EV is in some cases misrepresented and misunderstood.

If you look at a lot of the situation, and I know that while California is leading the charge for EVs, they can’t even keep their air conditioners on in the summertime. So what are they gonna do when everybody’s got a EV car and charging and powers off? But you know, that’s California. In racing, it’s probably tremendous for drag [01:07:00] racing, probably.

Okay. For sprint racing, endurance racing is gonna be a challenge. Your energy density per mass is quite a challenge unless you’re doing hot swaps. But then you’re also basically gonna have a. A large generator in order to, to recharge your batteries if you’re doing a nurse race, so are you really an EV or are you just a big diesel?

So there’s some challenges there. Liking small light cars, an EV is not in my horizon. I think it’s probably a tremendous commuter car, city car. But in the US if you’re not in the east coast or west coast densely populated area, it can be a challenge because everybody’s like, oh, the, the average commute is two or three miles or 10 miles or 20 minutes or it depends on who reports it.

Right? Average is far from normal. You get a lot of people who, their commute is literally the New York City. Their commute is to walk to the subway and take the subway. So is that commute like 30 feet maybe? I don’t know how they’re copulating average. So I know that I drive way too much right now for a current EV to be practical in, in our life.

Vicky could probably get away with it cuz she doesn’t travel as much for work. But I drive to [01:08:00] Huntsville, Alabama from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Yeah, I’m kind of silly, but don’t know that it fits our lifestyle at this point. And it’s not a matter of. Range. It’s a matter of recharge and the, the recharge to me is more important than the range.

Cuz I can handle a car that gets 200 miles in a gas tank and it takes me five minutes to fill it up. But if it’s even 300 miles and it takes me 45 minutes, that that trip to Huntsville is gonna get really painful. Let me ask you this. Just if you put all that stuff aside, is there an EV though that has caught your attention?

Then maybe you’re keeping an eye on that. If they get the formula right, you would consider crossing that threshold. Admittedly, I have looked at the original Tesla roasters, which their pricing has started to get a little crazy, but everything right now is crazy. I think I would be tempted with some of the hybrid sports CARSs, but there’s no EVs right now that interest me.

She likes I pass. She likes the white ones. Yeah, I pass. Listen, listen, I don’t have car knowledge like that. I just don’t now, you know, put me in MoMA. In New York City, I can start telling you all [01:09:00] about not the steering wheel, she’s talking about the Museum of Modern Art. So Yes. Can I, can I can, I can walk you through that.

But you know, when it comes to car history and I just don’t have that knowledge comes with I will. It does, it does. And my, and a couple of coffee table books will really help. I’m telling you. Yeah. Well I’m, I’m a, I’m like officially two years like heavily into this. I have a ways to go. I’m the biggest frustration.

Sue. Yeah. Biggest frustration I have is, you know, when she needs to get a new car and I ask her what she wants, she gives me lots of criteria and none of them are useful. It’s just like, it’s gotta be able to fit the dog. And then, you know, every now and then we go skiing so we have to be able to pack everything.

And I’m like, we go skiing like once every two years. So to re to Rey that problem, we approached one vehicle purchase the same way you were talking about prepping for the track, it was spreadsheets and calculations and how much cargo space and people room and all this kind of crazy stuff. And it got to the point where I satisfied all the requirements that my wife needed.

And then I finally said, just walk up and down the aisles at CarMax and point at [01:10:00] something and then we’ll go from there. You know what car has the most interior space that you could ever ask for? The one that you rent when you actually need that much space. Like pick your monster, s u v and you can fit as many people as you want in there.

You can fit more people than we know in there. And I don’t have to drive it every single day. It’s fantastic. So let’s transition. What are some future goals for the race team and the podcast? Like where, where are you all going with this? Are you gonna lose the end training at some point? No, we’re never gonna lose the end training.

We will. Don’t think anybody ever does training. I mean, I don’t think any driver should ever. Think that they’ve mm-hmm. I’ve yet to meet anybody, including everybody on our team, who got out after one lap or one stint and said, yep. Nailed it. Right. Didn’t miss a thing. Every apex dead on. That’s all there is.

You know, maybe Randy Post, but not us. And, uh, you know, Randy’s still training and learning and, and trying, so, you know, if he’s still going [01:11:00] at it. Mm-hmm. I know I need to. Where do we see the podcast going? Well, right now we see it going episode 3 34. Yeah, it’s the next one. Yeah. I’m kind of an in the moment guy.

We have general goals, but mm-hmm. Nothing really metric related. We, we wanna help people. The more people we help, the, the happier we are. I think for our podcast, I’d like to kind of steer up a little bit back to our team and see, because we haven’t had a really good chance to expand on the growth that we have.

We haven’t done that in a while. I’d like to revisit that, but great guests learning with the podcast and, you know, just keep it going. It’s a great way to make friends and, you know, out on the track and they come, it’s like, Hey, garage cheers and training. And they start talking and, and it’s like, whoa.

Like, People are starting to know us. You know, it, it’s, it’s kind of weird. It’s crazy. What about your driving though? I would like to get to level four into Great Lakes for sure. With the racing, I mean, I like to do some more lucky dogs. I like to kind of dance. I’m, listen, I’m not gonna be, that person’s gonna go grab a trophy out of, with some kind [01:12:00] of money or whatever gets sponsors.

It’s not gonna happen. It’s not the goal. I think to send information to garages and training gmail.com though, if you’re interested in being dumb enough to do it now, we’re just kidding. Yeah, that’s right. So I mean, honestly, my goal is, is to enjoy the racing, try a couple new series, kind of push myself a little bit when I start getting more comfortable in my skillset.

But generally just retire into being an instructor when the time comes. I mean, I mean, what a way to go and just to keep moving is just when you’re just older and just be able to share your skills. So you said something really interesting, retire into being an instructor. It makes it sound like being an instructor is where, you know, race car drivers go to die or something.

I don’t know if they’re retired. No, but boy, what I wanna get to is, it’s actually a great jumping off point for you guys, and as Bill knows, as he’s transitioned to becoming an instructor. Mm-hmm. That in training is even more important. I mean, I’ve been an instructor now for almost a decade and. I never stopped learning.

I learned so many things from my students, more so than I do behind the [01:13:00] wheel because I get on NJ and P or Pit race and the lap is muscle memory. You just do it. You’ve done it the same way forever. Mm-hmm. You know what your optimal lap time is, you’ve got all that stuff down, but it’s when you get in with the student, all hell breaks loose.

Cuz you don’t have control over those variables. You still continue to learn and you still continue to grow as a driver. Well, the thing is too is that when people kind of hit retirement age, they either, no, seriously, I am dead serious. Like I have like an old, you’re 27. No. Yeah, right. As we get older, I’m approaching the generation ahead of me that, you know, I’m watching my parents get older and they’re very like Cadillacs.

Yeah, right. But you know, a body emotion stays in motion and when you start getting older you start going more into isolation. So what a better way to stay moving to be social and to get out and be part of something is to retire into something like that. Very true. Very well said. So I have goals. I have goals for every stint of A H B D E.

So if you wanna know what my goals are, [01:14:00] I will refer to my goal list. We have compete in the NASA Thunder Hill 25. We have G LTC and not be Last would be fantastic. I’d like to be middle. That’d be kind of fun. I’ve got tracks I want to go to. I’ve got different places I want to be. The, the one thing I don’t have is I don’t have the, I want to drive a super fast car.

I don’t care. I’m more than happy. Spec 46 is my self-imposed limit. Everybody keeps saying that’ll change, but it’s not gonna change. So since you brought it up, one final pit stop question. What tracks are still on your bucket list? Anyone? I have we hit some really good tracks. We, we’ve actually hit some very good tracks.

I wanna hit them all right. Now Ozarks comes to mind cuz it’s new. We’re still trying to get to v i r. Yeah, v r number one. We haven’t done it yet. It shocks me when people say that because for us it’s like, we’ve been the v I R A million times or the Glen and you’re like, really? That’s on your bucket list?

I, I know. Offense by the way. I’m just saying. No, we found, we’ve found the Glen. It’s just, yeah. V i r is not raced in most of the series that we’ve raced in. Ah, that makes sense. And a pack of [01:15:00] our friends from racing that race in the south that we meet at periodically at a couple racetracks. That’s their home base.

And of course we have the dominating with Dawson, Ben Dawson. We have yet to meet in person and that’s one of his home tracks. Just to be at v i r would be fun just to catch up with pack of people and try a new racetrack. We, we went to the track and we realized, you know, I’m a natural driver. I’m an excellent driver, this is great.

We go to the track for the first time. We realized, wow, this is not different. This is way different. So then we started realizing, you know, if we do this H B D thing, there’s actually skills that we don’t have. So we started doing the H B D E thing and the first season we did, that was our second season of racing.

We tried all the different H HPDs and the one that we like the best happened to be NASA Great Lakes, which is so inconveniently far for us. The closest one’s, five hours. It just gets worse. And Ncms probably the furthest That’s 15 something hours from our house. Yeah. But I got to try mid Ohio. Oh, that’s true.

That’s true. And we’ve done gingerman with them. We’ve done Audubon, we’ve done Mid Ohio. We’ve done [01:16:00] pretty much all the tracks that they do. Pit race. Sure. The only places that we can go, I, I just did our first a e r race, which was fun. Vicky and Jennifer aren’t quite ready yet. They don’t feel they’re ready.

It’s not whether they’re ready or not, it’s, they don’t feel they’re ready. So there’s very few series that we can race at V I r. But we’re finding more and more h HPDs with the opportunity to go to the v i r. So that’s probably where we’re gonna end up going. It’s been on the list. We had the plague, so that was two years of non-real racing.

You know, hopefully we’re post plague for everybody’s sake. In the world’s sake. That would be fantastic. It’s on our goal for this year. Say it’s probably 50 50, whether we’ll actually pull it off. But, um, we may go there just and not drive, but I’d really like to drive there. That would be fun. Mm-hmm. Don’t go to v i r and not drive.

That’s my number one. I know. That’s the bad thing. Yeah, I didn’t say what drive the car. They’ll quickly move up. If not in your top five, somewhere very close to it is an absolutely amazing lap. Mm-hmm. So, and owned by one of the co-owners of Pit Race, from what I understand or something. There’s some relationship there.

Yeah, really. Race is lovely. I like that. That’s my favorite [01:17:00] current. That’s a great, that’s a great lap as well. So. Mm-hmm. I tend to look outside of the US I’ve been to a lot of tracks myself. I used to cart race all over the country and things like that. And so I always have things in my mind and Brad knows I wanna run at Brands Hatch, right?

Mm-hmm. And something low horsepower, stuff like that. Like there’s some really cool tracks outside of the US that I think are still on my list that I’ll, I’ll get there. You know what I mean? Yeah. They’re all on the list. It’s, you know, the bucket is very large for the number of tracks I want to go to, cuz I, I’d like to try them all and usually once you try it once, you usually wanna do it again.

So, you know, it’s kinda like sushi, right? You try it the first time and it’s just like a totally weird experience. You have to try it the second time cuz you know what you’re doing. You’re going into it. It’s just like a track. You know what you’re doing, you know that, you know, the scariest thing to me was when I didn’t prep the way that I’ve developed into prepping for going to Watkins Glen and I was coming up to a turn and I didn’t know if it was left or a right.

And Watkins Glen is not a good place for that to be happening. I’m very anal about my track prep for new tracks, but the second time is always you don’t the first time don’t, you don’t. You don’t say, yeah. Yeah. [01:18:00] Bill, bill at one point shocking. He caught a really good idea. He went out and he got large three by four foot track maps and he had ’em laminated to where we can actually write on them.

He actually puts ’em on our walls and we can edit our notes on it. Or he can, when he is instructing somebody, he can actually draw it around and make the marks on it. And then, Take our students out. So we’ll either hang them up inside the paddock or we’ll hang them up inside the trailers. But he’s picked up a couple tips and he’s always pushing us forward in training.

So in training. Mm-hmm. So that being said, bill and Vicky, any shoutouts promotions, thank yous. Anything else you’d like to share with our audience that we didn’t cover thus far? We have some discounts that don’t do anything for us, but if people want to use ’em, we’ve got discount for Apex Pro, which is really great entryway, especially into telemetry.

It’s a great system. We had, we had Andrew on, on our previous Andrew’s Awesome. Yeah, yeah. Recently we’re trying out a system from Candelaria on, uh, the Sentinel System, which is a. Incar live video streaming capability with three [01:19:00] cameras and, uh, integrates with your AIM system. So he’s got a discount for that.

The thing that we like to do is really to be a resource where if you’ve got a question, hopefully we’ve had a podcast that will deal with it from either our experience or from an expert’s expertise. Go into it and hopefully solve one of your problems quickly. Like, uh, a lot of times on the internet, you’ll see in Facebook, people are just coming into the sport.

They’ll be like, I hate my radio. It doesn’t work. We always say, go to this episode. We had Sampson on, and they, they just solved all our problems and it was cheap. I mean, it’s so cheap to fix our radios and. Reinventing the wheel and racing can get very expensive. So hopefully we can save you some time and some money be somewhat entertaining.

We try to be entertaining sometimes. I don’t know that we succeed, but, uh, that is the goal and hopefully you’ll get a little better. Mm-hmm. Although we’re in the same circle and, you know, petrolheads of a feather flock together. Right. We’re not really absolutely competing with one another for airtime or for personalities, which is fantastic.

Bigger boat [01:20:00] baby. Yeah, right. That’s right. Well, I look at it as, Is the Japanese philosophy, rising tides lift all ships. Right, exactly. So we’re all doing, we’re all in this together, you know, at the end of the day. Mm-hmm. I like, I like not only the rising tide, but I wanna give everybody a bigger boat. I’m usually the guy with the drill though, putting holes Yeah.

In the hall, right? Yeah. I thought that was my job. We’re, we’re a very, very inclusive team. We are honored to have had Bill and Vicky from Garage Heroes and Training on Break Fix, and we look up to you guys not only for your racing pursuits, but being superheroes in the automotive and Motorsport podcasting scene with over 300 plus episodes for folks to catch up on.

You should not be honored and you should aim much higher than where we’re at. Absolutely.

You can find out more about Garage Heroes and Training by visiting their website, www.garageheroesandtraining.com. Search for their show on all your favorite pod catchers and follow them on social media at. Garage Heroes and training on Instagram and Facebook and Garage [01:21:00] Heroes it on the Twitter and if you’d like to be on their show, you can reach out to Bill and the team at Garage Heroes and training gmail.com.

Thank you for inviting us on though. Absolutely. And you know, obviously it’ll be fun to be on your show where we get to be interviewed because that’s absolutely, for you guys, it’s very different to be on the other, yeah. On the receiving end of this, right. So yeah, a little bit. Yeah, so he is called the Interrogator, so you know, just warning you for when you do come on.

So Very nice. Well, Vicky and Bill, I cannot thank you guys enough for coming on Break Fix and sharing your origin story. And we really do appreciate everything you’re doing for the Motorsports community, for everybody out there that’s looking to get into this sport, into this hobby, getting them up off their couches and into the paddock and behind the seats of race cars or just any other Chevy Malibu that they found at the Hertz a lot.

So that being said, again, thank you for coming on, sharing your story, and we look forward to part two of this [01:22:00] episode when we visit you guys on Garage shares and training. Mm-hmm. Thank you for having us on and, uh, thank, hopefully we, hopefully we didn’t break your podcast and hopefully we fixed it just a little bit.

Thank you so much for having us.

That’s right. Listeners, if you enjoy this episode, be sure to check out our Patreon for a follow on pit stop mini. So, so check that out on www.patreon.com/gt motorsports and get access to all sorts of behind the scenes content from this episode and more. If you like what you’ve heard and want to learn more about gtm, be sure to check us out on www.gt motorsports.org.

You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows. You can call or text us at (202) 630-1770 or send us an email at crew chief [01:23:00] gt motorsports.org. We’d love to hear from you. Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted to remind you that G T M remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge.

As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies and GTM swag. For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of fig Newton’s, gummy bears, and Monster.

Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, None of this would be possible.[01:24:00]

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We are honored to have had Bill & Vicki from Garage Heroes in Training on Break/Fix, and we look up to you guys not only for your racing pursuits, but being superheroes in the automotive & motorsports podcasting scene, with over 300+ episodes for folks to catch up on. You can find out more about Garage Heroes In Training by visiting their website, garageheroesintraining.com – search for their show on all your favorite podcatchers, and follow them on social media @garageheroesintraining on IG and FB, and GarageHeroesIT on the Twitter. And if you’d like to be a guest on their show you can reach out to Bill and the team at garageheroesintraining@gmail.com

After their second race, they launched Garage Heroes in Training to document their journey from clueless to competent. The podcast became a living diary of what to do—and more often, what not to do. From misreading VIN-style episode numbers to sharing Florida Man stories on the fly, the show blends education with entertainment.

Their goal? To help others go from sofa to starting grid. They’ve onboarded over 23 new drivers, built a community, and created a 10-part series on racing basics – from paddock prep to safety gear.


The Fleet That Failed (and Flourished)

Early cars included a turbo Mustang and a proper Capri – both plagued by parts scarcity and mechanical woes. “They run like factory-new Fords,” Vicki joked. Eventually, they pivoted to a Chevy S10, which proved reliable and easy to wrench on. But as their skills grew, so did their ambitions. Today, the fleet includes:

  • A 2003 Chevy S10 (retired soon)
  • A 1993 Honda Civic (front-wheel drive learning curve)
  • A Honda Fit (for B-Spec and Sunday Cup)
  • A spec Miata (in progress)
  • An endurance-prepped E46
  • A daily-driven E46 M3
  • A 2019 Miata for HPDEs

They’ve even divested a turbo Miata that was “too street for track, too track for street.”


Racing for the Journey, Not the Trophy

Garage Heroes in Training isn’t chasing podiums – they’re chasing progress. Bill earned his MSF Level 2 instructor certification and now teaches HPDEs across NASA Great Lakes. Vicki’s moving into HPDE 3 and 4, training as a mechanic, and mastering front-wheel drive dynamics.

Their biggest win? A class victory in Lemons. Their biggest “oops”? A rogue tire that broke a gas meter and summoned two fire trucks, an ambulance, and a street excavation crew. (Episode 68 has the full saga.)

Bill and Vicki embody the grassroots spirit: inclusive, curious, and always learning. Whether it’s towing three cars to Gingerman or debating which Top Gear host they’d grab a beer with, their story proves that motorsports isn’t just for the elite – it’s for anyone willing to try, fail, and laugh along the way.

As Bill says, “Winning is being able to start and finish.” And with Garage Heroes in Training, the journey is the real victory.


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From Heartbreak to Horsepower: Joey Jordan’s 26,000-Mile Vanlife Redemption

When race car driver Joey Jordan stepped away from the track, he wasn’t just leaving behind a career – he was walking away from a childhood dream. Burned out and disillusioned, Joey didn’t board a plane to escape. He climbed into a beat-up, five-and-a-half-foot-wide Toyota Hiace van named Flacco and drove 26,000 miles from California to South America in search of clarity, adventure, and maybe a way back to motorsports.

Photo courtesy Joey Jordan IV

Joey’s departure from GT racing wasn’t sudden – it was the culmination of years spent chasing podiums, sacrificing relationships, and realizing that the dream didn’t match the reality. “It was like my long walk down the beach after being heartbroken by my childhood dream,” he said. But even as he left racing behind, his love for cars remained. That’s why he chose Flacco (below), a Japanese-imported diesel, manual, four-wheel-drive Hiace van – quirky, narrow, and perfect for blending in across Latin America.

Joey Jordan's Toyota HiAce Flaco
Photo courtesy Joey Jordan IV

Joey didn’t fly to South America. He drove. From Southern California through Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, Flacco became his home, his companion, and his ticket to freedom. Along the way, he picked up a ragtag crew: an Australian traveler, a German girl, and a Brit – all crammed into the tiny van, sleeping in hammocks, tents, and occasionally five-deep inside Flacco.

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In Mexico, Joey surfed, drank beer, and attended the WRC rally in León, camping with passionate fans and soaking in the spectacle. In Belize, he marveled at propane-powered cars and the Rastafarian-inflected Creole English. In Guatemala, he found himself back behind the wheel of a race car.

Joey Jordan and his Toyota HiAce Flaco in the deep South American jungle
Photo courtesy Joey Jordan IV

Despite his “breakup” with racing, Joey couldn’t resist the lure of the track. Using Facebook and Wikipedia, he tracked down a local race series and talked his way into the Toyota Yaris Cup. “They didn’t really have as many regulations,” he laughed. “It felt like racing in the ’70s.” Mid-pack and beat up by local drivers, Joey still relished the experience – especially the moment when a volcano erupted during pre-grid. “I thought the car was vibrating. Nope. Just a volcano.”

Spotlight

Synopsis

This Break/Fix podcast delves into the remarkable 26,000-mile journey of SRO TC America driver Joey Jordan, who traveled from California to Patagonia in a Toyota Hiace van named Flacco. The podcast explores Joey’s reasons for leaving GT racing, his decision to drive through South America, and the numerous adventures and misadventures he encountered along the way, including mechanical issues, dealing with customs, being robbed in Colombia, and ultimately finding himself. Joey shares insights on different car cultures across Latin America, the improvisational spirit he observed, and the challenges of overlanding in a foreign land. Despite the harrowing experiences, Joey’s journey allowed him to rediscover his passion for cars and racing, ultimately shaping his future perspective in motorsports.

  • Propane powered cars in Belize
  • Racing a Toyota Yaris in Guatemala at the base of a volcano 
  • How he converted his right-hand drive to left-hand drive in Nicaragua to try and fool Costa Rican officials into letting his “illegal” car into the country… and how that got him stranded in no man’s land, stuck in between two countries and then later cost him a stint in a tourist prison
  • Hanging out with crazy truck drivers in Colombia and Bolivia 
  • His overall love/hate affair with my van; the relationship between car/man. 
  • The Peruvian driving insanity and why order is good… why you should be happy to follow all the “stupid” rules we have on the streets here in America.
  • Trying to locate car parts in Latin America.  
  • Getting stuck in the Bolivian salt flats
  • Chile’s roads with extra-grippy asphalt through the surfaces of the corners
  • How the vibe of culture really comes across in overall driving styles throughout the country and the overall freedom of traveling by car brought him to beautiful places not many “gringos” have seen.

Transcript

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: With tonight’s guest, we can easily wax poetic about all his Mazda cup and touring car races, but instead we need to focus on an amazing 26. thousand mile journey that SRO TC America driver Joey Jordan and his van Flacco took in order to make his return to motorsports.

I had the pleasure to meet up with Joey at the Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles, where he works now. But before we get there, we have to rewind and unpack this telenovela filled with stories of man versus machine, love and hate, [00:01:00] and even some South American jail time. So without further ado, welcome to break fix Joey Jordan.

Joey Jordan IV: Thank you, Eric. Thanks for having

Crew Chief Eric: me. This is going to be a lot of fun. So let’s start off by what drove you to leave GT racing and head to South America? What kicked off this whole adventure?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, it’s kind of hard to like nail down exactly why I chose the path to go down to South America. I know why I left racing and it was like a hard decision.

It was my childhood dream to become this race car driver. I just put all my like life energy into it. Pissed off girlfriends, pissed off friends, you know, all of this for racing. And I just got to realize as I started to progress through my racing career, that it wasn’t exactly what I wanted it to be. You know, I had some hard moments.

So basically it was like my trip down to South America and this big travels, like my long walk down the beach after I was heartbroken by my childhood dream. You know, I was like, wow, this thing that I’ve been trying. to do my whole life [00:02:00] isn’t really for me, I guess. And that was my journey away from it, I guess.

Crew Chief Eric: So you got a couple of bucks in your pocket. You pack your backpack. You get on a plane at LAX. Why South America of all the places in the world to go to?

Joey Jordan IV: See, no, I didn’t get on a plane. I drove to South America from my house in California. Whoa. In a van that I imported from Japan. I still liked cars. My little breakup from racing didn’t exclude my fandom towards cars, so I chose a specific van from Japan, a Toyota Hiace, four wheel drive, diesel, manual.

Yeah, so I drove it down from Southern California.

Crew Chief Eric: And you named it after our elite quarterback, Joe Flacco, right?

Joey Jordan IV: No, not quite. I’ve been going to Mexico a lot in my life. Anyone who’s like tall and skinny, or they’ll be ironic, who isn’t skinny, they’ll call them Flacco, which means skinny. And this van, because Japanese vehicles get a higher tax if they’re wider than five and a half feet, was only five and a half feet wide.

So that’s why we call it Flaco. [00:03:00] So

Crew Chief Eric: you drive from LA all the way down to South America. So where do you find yourself? What happens next?

Joey Jordan IV: It starts in Mexico and that’s pretty much smooth sailing. I’m kind of trying to find myself and figure out what’s going on. And yeah, I’m just trying to figure out how to do it.

Like I’m living out of a van, meeting new people. I’m trying to figure out different rules of the road. One of the first things I did in Mexico besides surf a lot and drink a lot of Mexican beer was actually went to the World Rally Championship Race, WRC, by Leon Mexico. And that was great. cool and crazy.

And yeah, W.

Crew Chief Eric: R. C. As many of the know, is near and dear to that oftentimes I’m the o organization or even in t W. R. C. So I feel you th

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah. And to do it with the fans in Mexico, they were so like crazy and passionate. And I was camping with like this one family and they gave me a lot of mescal and [00:04:00] tequila and was just, it was a fun time.

It was crazy.

Crew Chief Eric: Was there a shift for you there now on the other side of the fence with the fans and feeling their enthusiasm and their excitement versus being on the track? What was that transition like?

Joey Jordan IV: It was different because the rally watching rally racing, I’m used to road racing. So I was kind of trying to figure it out with the fans.

Of course, I have a little more inside perspective of what the driver might be going through, but I kind of went into it not knowing what to expect at all. And quite the spectacle, all wheel drive, crazy to see them just hook it around those corners and power out barely counter steering.

Crew Chief Eric: Was there any one brand that stuck out to you?

Were you cheering for the Toyota Yaris’s or the Hyundai’s or.

Joey Jordan IV: Not brand specific, but there was a local driver racing in one of the, like, the lower classes that the guys that I was hanging out with told me about, and I think he was just driving, like, it was a Subaru of some sort. I related to him. They didn’t have much money.

It was a beat up car, and he was just going for it.

Crew Chief Eric: You continue to make your way South. Then what [00:05:00] happened?

Joey Jordan IV: Let’s see. I go South and I’m just kind of cruising along. I meet like crazy Australian guy. He starts traveling with me and then I meet a German girl and a British girl. So we’re all going along as a band of four in this tiny little five

Crew Chief Eric: and a half foot band.

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah. Yeah. We would stop at like hostels and stuff, or we, I also had like a tent and hammocks and it’s really warm. It’s like the jungle. So we would just. Park on the beach and they would sleep in the hammocks or tents or wherever we could fit people. Sometimes in cities, we’d all have to pack in all five of us sleeping in the van.

But yeah, then we made our way into Belize, which is the like Southern East part under the Yucatan of Mexico, much like most Americans. I didn’t know much about Belize at all. And it is, you know, I kind of thought it was an island, but no, it’s part of Central America. And it in Belize, it’s, you know, Kind of like what you would think of Jamaica as they speak English, first of all, like they speak like a Creole English, which is, I didn’t even know existed like a different dialect of English.

So it’s kind of like Rastafarian. That was very interesting. Probably car wise, most interesting [00:06:00] thing because they were part of the Commonwealth, their gas prices are way, way high, just like England. So they use like the same form as England did because it used to, it was an English territory. So because it’s so high and it is a poor country, they actually convert a lot of their cars.

It’s, I guess it’s kind of a hybrid system, but to propane powered vehicles. So they have a big propane tank in the back of a lot of their cars, essentially a bomb and I had a guy like show me how it worked. They had like a switch that would turn it from the combustion engine to the propane engine. And yeah, that was just wild.

Totally different kind of car scene down there.

Crew Chief Eric: So is Belize like we are to believe it was as we’ve seen it on like top gear or on the world’s, you know, greatest roads and toughest roads and all that kind of stuff.

Joey Jordan IV: I mean, there’s some that are really, really bad, but it’s mostly just like pretty doable overall.

The road wise, it’s the other drivers that can make it like hairy. There’s definitely some bad roads, but like, if you wanted to go to Belize and drive through it, and if you did [00:07:00] research, there’s plenty of good roads to get you to wherever you need to be. Just when you go off the beaten path and get lost, like I have did several times, that’s when you encounter these crazy, crazy roads.

Crew Chief Eric: So any issues with the van up until this point?

Joey Jordan IV: It was, uh, pretty reliable, except like, I had a top bunk bed thing set up, like almost like a hammock and the Australian Dan, I think was sleeping in it and that fell like on me. We had to scratch that idea, you know, had an obnoxious amount of rust. It was kind of like driving in a candy wrapper.

Crew Chief Eric: Were you ever worried that if something broke, you wouldn’t be able to find parts for it or anything that being an imported vehicle from Japan?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah. I mean, that’s part of the research that I did. So. I knew it’d be fresh from California, but once it got into South America, this van, except for in the United States is one of the most ubiquitous vehicles they make.

It’s everywhere. It starts in Panama. There’s a big Toyota Hiace scene there. They modify them. And then in South America, they have, they’re everywhere. They’re like the regular taxi van. So I wasn’t [00:08:00] too worried about parts, but if I broke down early, it would have been a little bit of an issue. You had a diesel and you had a

Crew Chief Eric: Toyota.

So it’s Reliable and reliable, right? So,

Joey Jordan IV: yeah, exactly. And I got one beat up on purpose. Cause from previous adventures, I’ve learned that you kind of have the best time when it breaks down or like when you have something unexpected happen. I didn’t over engineer it at all. It was just kind of what it was and I drove it, but yeah, up into this point, no major issues.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you think it helps you blend in too, with the locals as you’re kind of traveling?

Joey Jordan IV: I mean, that’s a big thing too. So I grew up in San Diego and I went down to Mexico a lot and that’s where I learned. You want to blend in with your cars down there. I have friends who go down there in their Ford Raptors and they’re going to get pulled over by police all the time.

They’re going to get hassled. Yeah, it’s a big part of it was about blending in.

Crew Chief Eric: As we continue this journey, what are you guys doing for money? Are you just living off of reserves? Are you kind of living off the land? How is that working as you’re continuing down this path?

Joey Jordan IV: I was living off of reserves. I saved up a lot of money, but you can live cheaply, especially when you don’t have to pay [00:09:00] for hotels.

And I did harvest a lot of food. Like I’m a spearfish too. So I would spearfish for food. I wasn’t doing as much spearfishing then, but there’s like coconuts and the food’s just really cheap overall. Like I remember we’re staying on one hostel. where I met some of the girls I ended up traveling with and like mangoes would just fall into the pool that you’re swimming in and you just take it eat that like I don’t know it’s pretty easy to live you know cheaply down there that’s part of the appeal I guess

Crew Chief Eric: Belize to Guatemala and in Guatemala you find yourself back behind the wheel of a race car how did that come to be

Joey Jordan IV: yeah Guatemala beautiful country first of all I was so shocked by its beauty and it’s like so close to us You know, like here in Southern California, I think it’s like a four or five hour plane ride.

And it’s not like a hot jungly place that I thought it would. They do have some of that more like cloud foresty, almost like San Francisco type of weather. And really green and beautiful. Love Guatemala. Got up in there and climbed up their huge mountain into the capital city. All right, keep on, you know, I did have some plans like, [00:10:00] okay, I’m breaking up with racing here in motor sports for a little bit, but it was hard to completely like let go.

So I had some ideas of like, well, maybe I can film how different cultures race, you know, and take a part of it. And I can make like some little sizzle reel and then send that off to whoever was a part of the race. Like if they were on Yokohama tires, I could send that off to Yokohama, you know, and see if we could work out something where they could give me a little.

extra cash to help me with my travels and I could provide them some cool, genuine content. But yeah, that, that was part of my idea is like, maybe I could see Anthony Bourdain, you know, parts unknown where he, he sees different cultures through food. I was going to think maybe I can do that through cars and racing.

Yeah. I just started kind of shopping around on Facebook, found a guy from Ireland who knew some people who’s an expat who actually lives down there. And I already knew where the, there was a racetrack near where I was kind of staying. Honestly, how I found his Wikipedia, there’s a really long, awesome list of racetracks all across the world by country.

And you can click on [00:11:00] those tracks and then just like put that on the Facebook and you’ll see all the local races that run there. But yeah, then I found my way into a Toyota Yaris and the Yaris Cup.

Crew Chief Eric: You walk up with your helmet and you’re driving soon. They said, Oh, Joey, we see you in SRO and they let you in.

I mean, what was that process like?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah. They don’t really have as much regulations there, right? It’s um, and that’s kind of the beauty of it. It’s almost like I felt like I was racing like in the 70s there and they were excited to have an American driver. I don’t think they’ve ever heard of me, an American race car driver that just gave me like some credentials and I know they, they sidestepped me.

Step their local licensing process and let me run as they told me in Mexico on my way down, you know down there It’s the true by eastly, but it which is the real free country You can kind of do what you want and that’s the same in that race. You didn’t need a license

Crew Chief Eric: So, how did you do in the yaris cup?

Joey Jordan IV: I think I was like mid pack They were, they did not want to let the gringo go by or be anywhere near them. There were some good drivers, but it was like a [00:12:00] crazy tight track. And I was, I don’t know what equipment I had anyways, race car driver, excuses, excuses, but yeah, I was about mid pack and just got beat up on by everyone, a lot of fun.

Great to meet everyone. Crazy amount of fans. Insane amount of fans with all the flag girls and promotions and wild experience. There’s a volcano erupting in the background. You know, I remember that we were on pre grid and I feel a vibration, you know, I’m starting to tune into the car. I’m like, what was that?

I’m like, wait, the car’s not even on yet. I didn’t know if like the engine was shaking. Yeah. I remember like finding out, oh yeah, the volcano was just erupting. It was just right behind us. That’s pretty awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: It was a road course, not like a rally cross or anything.

Joey Jordan IV: No, it was a road course, tight little road course, probably like only a mile and a half long, a bunch of corners.

I think my favorite part of that race, this will give you an idea of exactly how much they’ve lived in the past and how much, uh, they don’t really have rules or regulations. There was a guy who broke down. [00:13:00] In the inside of turn one, he was like maybe a foot off the track and he hops out of his car, which is my first red flag, like, Whoa, Whoa, you don’t do that.

But then he runs over and finds his mechanic in the paddock with his full gear. He ran across the front straightaway mechanic with the right amount of wrenches and they start working on their car. There’s just a standing yellow flag and they’re working on the car on the inside of turn one. Uh, no protection.

They get it running. Mechanic runs back across the track. The guy gets strapped in and yeah, he finished the race. Wow.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s insane. I can’t even, you know, the first rule of, of any of these schools and even the races never get out of your car unless it’s on fire. Right. I mean, it’s just like, wow. I know.

Joey Jordan IV: I know.

People are just watching like, oh yeah, good job. Get your car running. That’s great.

Crew Chief Eric: So from Guatemala, you head to Nicaragua and you make your first set of mods to Flacco the van.

Joey Jordan IV: Nicaragua is where things started to not go to plan, and that’s a big part of Latin America, is it’s hard to kind of plan in that kind [00:14:00] of long form of travel.

Things are going to go wrong. I was actually planning on doing another race in Costa Rica that I was trying to get down to, but in Nicaragua, forgot the president’s name. I think he’s still the president, Ortega. He’s been the president forever, but there is a bunch of protests. It started something with students, but basically it was the typical, like it turned violent and it was government versus the people.

It just got really crazy in Nicaragua pretty fast. And I think Nicaragua is one of my favorite countries. So it’s a shame that was happening, but yeah, I get into Nicaragua. There’s a bunch of protests going on, like roadblocks. I knew I wanted to get to the South quickly and Nicaragua takes up the whole Central America.

I can’t go anywhere around it. So I have to go through Nicaragua. I know these protests are going on. I had to go through like crazy roadblocks and backroads and a bunch of local families helped me out. A lot of times the roadblocks were violent, so it was pretty edgy. But then I got down to the southern part of Nicaragua where there’s a bunch of surf and just kind of hung out there.

Pretty stressful drive down. So I partied [00:15:00] quite a bit, kind of cut the edge off and enjoyed myself. And then, the protests just kept getting worse. So I was like, well, time to go to Costa Rica. I go to Costa Rica. They just look at my car and they’re like, what, what’s that? I’m like, what do you mean? It’s a car.

And they’re like, this is all in Spanish, but like, we don’t allow right hand drive vehicles. That’s when I found that out. So right at Costa Rican border, just completely unprepared. My journey ends there. If I can’t drive through Costa Rica, Costa Rica is thanks to American tourism, a little more built up and they actually have rules and regulations.

There’s certain situations in Latin America where you can just bribe them. And I think I got up to like a grand and they were not budging on letting me through at all. So there I was, I have violent protests pushing on me from the north. I was just trapped in this one little kind of touristy town called San Juan del Sur in the southern western part of Nicaragua, but I didn’t know how bad the protests were going to get.

They were talking potentially full civil war, like I needed to get out of there. So I could have just left the van there and [00:16:00] hope that it’d get better and continue my journey on foot. I could just stop my trip. I could have put it on a boat, but nothing seemed very legal or like organized the boat that I’d have to put it onto.

I would have had to go to the capital city, which was a really bad situation. I guess being an idiot and thinking I can just get my way with things. I came up with another option, which is. I bet I can just move the wheel to the other side of the car, drive across the border, super late at night, just engineer something, put like a fake dash and hopefully they won’t notice.

And I can just sneak through because I know once I was in Costa Rica, none of the officials would care. It was just the border officials that cared.

Crew Chief Eric: And you’re not alone. So your passenger, who is technically in the driver’s seat, could be operating the pedals while you’re steering from the left hand side of the car.

Joey Jordan IV: That was the crazy part. To get this fabricated, I had to go into the city just north of me, where they did have protests called Rivas. I asked all these different fabrication [00:17:00] shops if they could help me. It was the dirtiest, grimiest one that said yes, eventually, like the last one. And it was essentially a muddy parking lot with a chain link fence.

I remember when I walked in, they were Welding over a bunch of spilled diesel fuel and there’s a spark shooting on that fuel. I was like, Ooh, this is going to be, I guess is the adventure I’d asked for and took a steering rack out of another Toyota that would fit my steering wheel. And we welded it in the passenger side through the glove box to my dash, basically another steering rack.

And then we welded a pulley, like a drive pulley to both steering racks, ran a belt. The wheel would actually drive the car on the other side. And this took a few days. I slept in this dirty, diesel y lot with these crazy mechanics who are just smoking cigarettes and welding. It was a pretty authentic experience.

But yeah, and then we built like this fake dash around it. I didn’t come up with a way or really felt like at the time to do anything with the pedals. So the pedals stayed on the right side of the car while the wheel was on the [00:18:00] left. And the crazy thing is, is I had to drive it to where I had some friends in the partying town I was hanging out in.

I had to drive it to them by myself. So I’m on the right side with the pedals and driving the stick shift with my left hand holding the steering wheel. That was pretty crazy, especially because I had to go through a pretty intense road block to get back there. Some guys and machetes trying to slash at my tires.

It wasn’t good. But so did this

Crew Chief Eric: modification render the steering wheel on the, what would be the right hand side of the car inoperable? Or did they both work?

Joey Jordan IV: There was no steering on the right side. Cause I just took one off and put it was normally the passenger side.

Crew Chief Eric: You did a quick release. So you could go from one side to the other, right?

Joey Jordan IV: I know that would have been smart, but I don’t think they had any quick releases there. I was pressed for time, right? There was like. In hindsight, I should have just hung out longer, but they really didn’t know what the situation was going to be like in Nicaragua. They said, their thing is going to get really bad.

Everyone was recommending to just get out of the country. [00:19:00] So it was kind of like my only option. Yeah. Then I got to the town, San Juan del Sur, where I had a few friends left over. I asked this Canadian guy to wait for me and we, uh, drove it across together. So we could at least mimic, you know, a driver and a passenger and.

Hilarious. We were in tears driving it to the border , um, in Costa Rica because it’s, it’s just so funny. Like, I think top Gear’s done some racing series like that where someone does the pedals and another person does a steering wheel. Great exercise. I didn’t think they didn’t get across in that episode how fun that is, but it was super entertaining.

Crew Chief Eric: So you now find yourself in Costa Rica with a modified van? Not yet. Oh, not yet.

Joey Jordan IV: No, no, not yet. So there’s no real, uh, shortcuts to the story, but we go to the, we drive to the border crying, laughter. We get there and there’s so many different checks to go through and we get through probably eight of those checks for on the Nicaragua side, three in the Costa Rican side, and we did it at midnight.

So no one could tell. And people were looking inside the car. It was going perfectly last [00:20:00] guy comes out in the Costa Rican side. He basically was like looking for the VIN and then he saw that there was no pedals underneath the steering wheel and then he shined his light and he could see everything. I would later learn to know him as El Jefe, which is the boss.

Wrong man to find at midnight and he wasn’t very happy with me. He’s like, you’re never coming into this country. You have to go back. He actually let my friend who was with me go, because I just pleaded with him and said like, Hey, he had nothing to do with this. So they let him go. So he walked into Costa Rica and found a bus.

So I was by myself. I tried to go back to Nicaragua to just kind of gather myself. The word got around fast and Nicaragua all of a sudden made up a law that said they don’t allow on right hand drive cars anymore. Even though I was just there, I was like, I just drove through here. What do you mean? So I was stuck.

It was about 200 yards in between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Yeah. Of no man’s land. I would spend a few days there. I’d later call it Nicarica. It was my own country Nice Yeah, and so yeah, I was stuck there. I was [00:21:00] really again left with no options I could have potentially gone on foot and just left my van there Talking to some of the officials and they said maybe you could do that.

Maybe you couldn’t so I was just playing with those options I ended up going into Costa Rica on foot. They did let me in and I left the van there. And then I just had to come up with the option of like, okay, do I leave the van here and continue the journey on foot? Does Costa Rica have my van now? And I really thought about just giving it up there.

Cause it was like a lot, you know, going through Nicaragua that was on the brink of a revolution was a lot on my consciousness. So. I ended up going back to Rescue Flacco when I tried to bring it back and just come up with a way to just get it through there. They essentially put me and Flacco into this, I don’t even know what it was, I wasn’t allowed to leave, I just call it a terrorist prison.

Essentially it was this huge fenced off barbed wired yard. where they had other cars and other people who weren’t allowed really in the country, or they had some issues. There’s a few Germans there and another American family there who [00:22:00] also ran into issues and we weren’t really allowed to leave. We were stuck until we could figure out our issues.

We were there, there’s a bathroom, Wi Fi, and this little muddy lot. Yeah. And I don’t even remember how long I was there for. It wasn’t too long until I jumped through all the hoops and litigations to tow Flacco all the way across Costa Rica and into Panama. So that ended up being the solution. Yeah, I had a little stint there in this, I don’t even know what to call it, this little tucked away, locked in yard.

Crew Chief Eric: In town block, right?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, exactly. That brought me into Panama. I kind of had to leapfrog Costa Rica.

Crew Chief Eric: So in Panama, what did you end up doing there? Or did you just kind of continue your journey on?

Joey Jordan IV: Up till now, that’s like four months of my trip. First, I had a van with two steering racks, so I was trying to figure that out.

Just kind of trying to process what was happening, what I should do with my trip. I lost a lot of money. I had to spend nearly four grand to just tow the van. I was kind of documenting my trip a little bit and I just scrapped that. I was just doing some soul [00:23:00] searching in Panama. But I also had the next task of, you can’t actually drive across in between Panama and Columbia.

It’s known as the Darien Gap. I think a couple of Americans did it once and just the Darien Gap, it took them three years to drive through. You basically have to like cut through the jungle. So what you have to do is put your car on a, on a boat. I was figuring out how to do that. We actually have to put it in a shipping container and ship it to Columbia.

So in Panama, I was doing a lot of spearfishing, hanging out at the beach. Trying to figure out the process of how to ship my van across. Trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my journey. You know, I’m young, I’m 23 years old. I’m just trying to like, also go on this journey to like, find myself and find what I was going to do with my life.

A lot of introspection, a lot of hanging out at the beach, doing some surfing, doing some spearfishing. Panama was a beautiful country as well.

Crew Chief Eric: So you and Flacco then end up in Columbia.

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, I’m in Columbia. I start to really find my groove of doing this whole van life thing. And this was in 2018, just to give you guys an idea.

You know, I got [00:24:00] really comfortable with spearfishing, harvesting coconuts, living very cheaply. You know, I was starting to figure out my money problem. I was making these. Psychological gains of just spending all this time with myself and thinking, and I was feeling really good about myself and figured like I had things just figured out.

So was racing

Crew Chief Eric: on your mind at any point? Did you have flashbacks to being on the track or was it the furthest thing from your mind at that time?

Joey Jordan IV: After I missed the race in Costa Rica and I lost a lot, it was like the furthest, I think it was pretty far out of my mind. I was still always looking at cars and the car culture and seeing what they’re doing.

And, but racing, yeah, it just seemed like a distant dream, you know, like that you like, yeah, that was a profound experience, but

Crew Chief Eric: what kind of progression did you see the further you went South? How did the car culture change and what kind of vehicles were you seeing as you moved through this?

Joey Jordan IV: I would say that the theme of central America and like Mexico and Guatemala and all those countries is just improvisation.[00:25:00]

Anytime they have a problem with the car, they’re so creative and making it work. And I really love that. I mean, I remember seeing a car that the whole sidewall was pretty blown out except for a few stitches and they just stuffed hay in the tire and this like work truck and that’s what they’re driving around in.

Yeah. I remember, I think we got a flat tire somewhere or someone I was traveling with got a flat tire. Someone drove by like, Oh no, that tire is good. That has at least like 10 more years on it. And like, just put some stuff in it. Everyone just seems a little more mechanical down there. Cause you have to be, if your car breaks down, you have to fix it.

But lots of Toyotas, lots of Japanese vehicles, everything was older, more beat up. In Guatemala, they have crazy like chicken buses, which are all the school buses from the 1970s in America that they imported down there, that they just stuff with people and just go flying through these dirt roads. Yeah, in the style of driving, but just a lot of improvisation through there.

But then in South America, it started to kind of change more and get their own personalities. I won’t get ahead of it there because that really [00:26:00] started to happen towards like Ecuador and Peru. I don’t want to get ahead of that. Columbia is, most of their cities are out like in these rain cloud forests.

So it’s very high up in the start of the Andes and it’s heavily populated cities. So the roads are absolutely insane. Like that’s exactly what you saw on like the top gear traveling episodes. Like I think the world’s dangerous road is. It’s somewhere around there, but they drove on famously, like it’s pretty similar to that, except even busier going into Medellin.

The road is really tight and narrow and you have these truck, the truck drivers in all these countries. There’s, they have to be like the best drivers ever. I think they should be put in a world rally car and see how they do. They drive flat out,

Crew Chief Eric: huh?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah. Yup. I hung out with a few of them at some truck stops and they’re just a crazy wild bunch.

I’m sure they got some

Crew Chief Eric: stories to share, huh?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, and lots of drinks and they have a lot of energy. So did they give

Crew Chief Eric: you tips on how to continue your journey? Like some of the best roads to take and places to avoid and things like that? I’m sure you [00:27:00] probably gained some knowledge from those truck drivers.

Joey Jordan IV: They would tell me like some roads that were good and bad, but they also had a big sense of humor and would just like to like mess with this random gringo like hanging out, usually talking to them or hang out with them from like 10 o’clock at night until everyone woke up to drive the next morning and they would just cut loose.

So they weren’t really in an advice frame of mind. And yeah, in some places like Colombia and in especially Bolivia, they had a lot of energy and that energy wasn’t really natural, right? It was kind of augmented by other substances, especially in Bolivia where it’s legal to just have cocoa leaves in your mouth.

So that’s the leaves that make cocaine out of, and that’s just what they’re chewing on, drinking a whole lot of. stuff. Yeah. In Bolivia they drink, uh, this like spit juice that is fermented. People chew on it, these things, and it’s called like chizza. I don’t know. They made me try some. It wasn’t too bad, but

Crew Chief Eric: So did you ever get to ride with any of the truck drivers while they were on some of their runs to get the full experience?

Joey Jordan IV: Hell no, I would never want to do that. [00:28:00] No, I’m basically implying they probably weren’t sober while they were driving. Yeah, I got you. I got

Crew Chief Eric: you.

Joey Jordan IV: No, no, no, no, no. And the way they drove, like, I don’t think they cared. And that was kind of their mentality. They’re almost like these rock stars. They didn’t really care if they crashed or if they made it, they’re just there to make some money.

They live or died, whatever. Full send, right? Full send. Yeah, that’s it. They were happy to be there that night and to have enough money to buy a bottle of whatever liquor that country had, and that was it.

Crew Chief Eric: So what was the political climate like once you crossed into Colombia and the other countries all the way through?

Was it, were you faced with more of these hazards or more of these protests or was it different?

Joey Jordan IV: Colombia kind of has just a long lasting political battle with like the FARC, who the people who operate the Darien Gap. I did find some trouble because so right when I crossed into Colombia, I was just right in that part where I thought I had everything figured out, you know, that was just this like, like, okay, I made it through that Costa Rican debacle that Nicaragua one, I stayed in Nicaragua longer than most of [00:29:00] the other tourists.

I think I know what’s going on. So I was camping along the beaches in northern Columbia, just not paying for campsites, like I’ll just find some random beach myself on some dirt road and camp for free, like save money. I was fishing a lot for food, catching crabs on the beach for food. I Just really becoming like Tom Hanks and Castaway.

Like I had my Wilson and Flacco and we were just grooving. That ended up leading into kind of a rough patch there. And before I explain this, it’s really sad to me how afraid people are to travel to Latin America because of stories like what I’m about to tell. But, All these countries can be extremely safe, Nicaragua, all of them, and they’re extremely beautiful if you’re not an idiot like me, okay?

I thought I could get away and just, and treat it like it was my own country, right? My own California where I, I am safe and there’s secure places. If you just do a tiny bit of research, if I would have just done a little bit of research, I would have known that right hand drive vehicles aren’t allowed into Costa Rica.

It’s all over the internet. [00:30:00] A lot of people have had similar problems like me. And then if I would have researched or just looked at a map, any of the traveling maps that they have, I would have seen that a beach that I was about to go camping to in Northern Columbia was deep, deep fark land. And lots of bad stuff happened there.

But basically, yeah, you could go to Columbia and be perfectly safe. If you just do a little bit of research. I’m just an idiot. And I also like to find trouble. So. Camping on a beach in Columbia, like completely secluded. I passed by like one house with this kid playing like soccer with like a literal rag ball.

Set up a fire. I was looking for crabs. Like I saw some crab holes. I found a coconut. I walked around naked for a little bit. Like I was fully in it. Like I’m jungle man. I was making this fire bent over and I heard like a twig snap and I turned around. One guy with a gun and one guy with a machete. Yeah, I remember the weirdest thing was like when I heard that something behind me I turned around I almost like apologized because every time in my life before i’ve been [00:31:00] startled It’s just been like someone coming in the room like oh, sorry Like I didn’t see you there and I almost like oh, sorry And then until I saw there was a gun pointed at me.

I could tell pretty quickly by the size of their pupils They you know, we’re all filled with confidence But basically, yeah, they tied me up beat me up pretty good pretty serious situation You They told me they were going to kill me. They cocked the gun in the back of my head. I thought that was it pretty much ripped everything out of Flacco.

For some reason, they didn’t pull the trigger and they left me just tied up and beaten up on the beach.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you think the fire was kind of the beacon that they knew you were there? Maybe had you not made that mistake, they wouldn’t have known, or was it just you, the sole car that was out of place that also maybe got the attention of the community or something?

Joey Jordan IV: The fire wasn’t even at a point to where it would alert anyone yet, because it was like twilight, so you couldn’t see the glow of the flame yet. Like, I remember the sun was just setting, and it was a beautiful sunset. I think they saw me roll up, maybe that kid who saw me playing soccer, saw me drive [00:32:00] past, was like, Hey, guess what?

I saw some gringo. And then that’s such a weird thing to see for them. That news spread across probably a bunch of other small houses. I didn’t even know were there. Yeah. And it becomes like a

Crew Chief Eric: scene in a bad movie, like a Tarantino film suddenly or something, you know?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, exactly. I think I have my private jungle beach.

I’m walking around naked. They’re probably laughing, doing lines of Coke, getting ready to take everything from me. Pretty harrowing experience. And yeah, I really don’t feel, uh, any like anger towards them at all. Like who knows what situation I’d be in if like I was in their shoes and how poor some of them live.

If I saw some punk white boy walk onto my beach and he had like this fancy camera and my daughter’s like picking coffee beans and she has to be out of school, I would rob that guy and sell that stuff so my daughter could go to school in a heartbeat. So yeah, I don’t take anything away from them. Just learn some things.

Pretty, pretty crazy experience.

Crew Chief Eric: So you graduated the school of hard knocks in Columbia, it seems like. So we’ve got to take a step back though. We’ve got to talk about [00:33:00] Flacco for a minute. You did all these modifications in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. So did you have to undo the mods? What happened with Flacco at that point?

Obviously, like you said, a lot of stuff got taken. So now you’re there naked and afraid and the van’s empty. What transpired next?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, so I guess to catch you up with Flacco, he in the city just not too far away from where I ended up getting robbed, Barranquilla, Colombia. I got everything removed and I was driving around all on the right side, but there’s still a steering rack there.

I basically just cut the pulley. Took all the dash stuff out and put the steering wheel just onto the stock steering rack. But I had a bare steering rack just sticking out there. So that wasn’t very inviting to any friends I might meet who want to travel with me. So I got that just cut out with like a grinder.

I just paid some guy like 10 bucks and bearing Kia probably two days before I ended up getting robbed. Yeah. After I got robbed, I was just laying there like tied up, probably had a few broken ribs, pretty beat up. And they told me. In [00:34:00] Spanish, which my Spanish is like getting better, but it wasn’t the best.

They told me that a bunch of people in the jungle. And then if I move within an hour, they’re going to kill me. They’re going to come and kill me. I have to stay there for an hour. So I got to lay there like bloody snot and broken ribs tied up for an hour. And just, uh, who knows how much time it was, but to me, it seemed like forever.

So did anybody

Crew Chief Eric: come to your rescue? How did you get untied?

Joey Jordan IV: I basically had to. inchworm across the sand. I was probably maybe 20 yards could have been 20, 000 miles from Flacco. Very painfully on some really beat up ribs. It was excruciating pain. I had to really convince myself to do that. You know, a lot happens when you think you’re going to die.

And I just remember that whole process, like I kept thinking about my mom and I realized when I was laying there, Oh, wait, I’m alive. Like I can go see her all the people, all the things that flashed in my head that I said goodbye to when I heard the cocking of that gun in the back of my head, I get that again, if I just figure out how to get to my van.

And, uh, [00:35:00] and so that was the motivating factor to very painfully slide across my broken ribs to Flacco. Very awkwardly, like, kind of backed myself up along the van, and I knew I had kind of like a hunting knife in one of the door pockets. My hands were still free, it was just my legs and arms that were tied up.

So I was able to get that, and cut me free enough to eventually get out, and found a spare key. Didn’t have time to really do triage, like all the drawers and everything and clothes were all thrown out of it, I just threw everything in. And started it up and drove out of there. So where did you head to

Crew Chief Eric: next?

The local hospital or

Joey Jordan IV: the next country in line? It’s almost hard to like, remember where I was at. There was a hostel that I stayed in in Cartagena, Columbia before. So I limped into there. I didn’t have any money. So I begged them to let me stay until I could find like a friend. Cause I had a friend coming down there to meet me.

And I was like, okay, I know he’s going to be here. If I can just get ahold of him, they can pay this bill at this hostel. Don’t need to [00:36:00] get into all the logistics of it, but I didn’t really have a plan. I had a lot of cash in the van. I had a lot of assets in the van that got stolen and I got a lot of my like psyche stolen, you know?

So I was just hovering and eventually I met up with my friends. You know, and I wanted him to still have a good time. So I just drove to Medellin and we hung out there for a while. And then, but eventually he left and then I was just by myself and like, I had to figure out what to do, but eventually I decided to just keep going and I made it to the border of Ecuador, but I was like, really out of money at that point and I knew I probably couldn’t make it to my goal of Patagonia.

I had some credit cards, luckily they didn’t find my passport. So I ended up getting ahold of my parents and telling them what happened. And of course that’s got to be hard for parents. And, uh, and I knew I need to go make some more money. So they offered to like fly me back. So what I ended up doing was actually flew back to California for a little bit to make some money.

I left Flacco in Ecuador and then came back to continue the [00:37:00] journey. That’s what ended up happening. But I remember when they bought me that plane ticket, I was sitting in, not quite Ecuador yet. And I was sitting in this mountain town and I was going through so much introspection. Like I just got this renewal on life.

And I thought about just like throwing the ticket away and just living in that town. I met some people there that were cool. I was like, I’m just going to work in these coffee fields right here. I’m good right now. Like I almost died. Like maybe I can just go out that way. But I did hop on that plane. It was a close, close moment.

Did end up coming back to California. I didn’t really know if I was gonna come back to finish the trip because I was just so rattled and I didn’t really know what to make of life and death or anything anymore at that point. But I eventually decided, like, I can’t let that be the story of my trip because then the FARC wins.

Then cocaine wins. Then it’s a sad story. So eventually I went back down to start the trip again. So did you do any

Crew Chief Eric: racing in between and your time back in California? Or did you say, nah, I’m still not ready to go back yet.

Joey Jordan IV: I don’t think I did any racing. [00:38:00] Luckily work at Porsche experience center, Los Angeles.

I was able to continue on working there. Thank goodness. So that’s, I guess, I mean, I was on a track every day. I can’t avoid it, right? That’s kind of my thing. And I think there was some other stuff that I can’t really remember. It was really a weird state of mind after that happened. It’s like I was just floating and appreciative to be breathing and not really putting much plan into my actions.

Right. It was just,

Crew Chief Eric: Then you take a break from this grand adventure and then you hop on a plane and return to Ecuador. Is Flacco there waiting for you or did you find another Flacco?

Joey Jordan IV: That was a big question at that point. When I left Flacco there, the situation was I could leave Flacco in this parking lot.

And I had to wait for my plane ticket out of there, but the only money I had left, only cash I could scrounge up, the only place I could stay because they wouldn’t let me stay in the van was in a brothel. So the last days before I flew back, I was sleeping in a brothel because that’s all I could afford.

And I would basically just sit in my room, eat tortillas because [00:39:00] it’s all I could eat with a little bit of the tajin sauce and some bananas. And then I’d walk around town and like talk to people. I was kind of in a weird fugue state, but that’s where I left it from. So I had like no money. I couldn’t set up anything properly.

So I really didn’t know Flacco was going to be there. But yeah, then I landed in Ecuador and this town is such a small mountain border town. It’s like hard to get to, but I ended up figuring out how to get some buses from the capital of Ecuador and Quito to this tiny mountain town. And Flacco had moved somehow from a different part of the parking lot.

But it was still there. And I think it had been like for like six, maybe eight months. So just sitting there, it took me like an hour and I got it started.

Crew Chief Eric: The love hate relationship with Flacco continues. Did you find, especially with your time by yourself, did you find yourself, you know, like you said, it’s like you’re Wilson.

Did you find yourself like talking to Flacco and, you know, coaching him along, maybe? You know, the sound of the diesel was giving you motivation or something like, especially as you restarted this journey so many months later, what was, what was that like?

Joey Jordan IV: Flaco is [00:40:00] completely my Wilson. I talk to him constantly.

I mean, I really talk to myself, but I mean, that’s why I think I like love older cars so much. And that’s like my style that I started to develop when I left for the trip. I think I liked newer cars, like, you know, all the exotic cars, but old cars have character. Flaco had a personality. He liked warm weather.

He didn’t like cold weather, you know, like a person. He liked to be driven a certain way. He would protest when I would drive him a little too hard for too long, just little things that would build up. And yeah, sometimes he would just give me hell. But when I started him back up, Like, it was very emotional.

Like, after the whole thing, after the robbery, I was almost like a zombie. I was, like, emotionless. But starting Flacco back up, and knowing that I could finish my journey, like, I was almost completely breaking down when he, when I first drove him away. That was a pretty magical moment. But then he quickly, uh, got on my dark side right after.

Uh oh! Yes. So

Crew Chief Eric: what broke?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah. Everything started breaking out for that. I don’t think it was [00:41:00] good for him to sit. And yeah, that was at like 4, 000 meters where he was parked. So roughly 12, 000 feet elevation. I made it all the way to keto. Barely, barely, barely, barely kept breaking down. It was like, had no power.

It was. Overheating a little bit. So I found a really cool garage in Quito that kind of took me in and helped me rebuild Flacco on the cheap. He let me do a lot of my own work and I just kind of paid like garage space. And he ended up being race car driver in, in Ecuador. He raced like old, I think Volkswagen, like Corrados, but maybe something different that’s even more unique, but some really cool older cars.

That was a cool experience hanging out with him and getting to know like a. A cool genuine car guy in Ecuador. But yeah, I had to source some fuel injectors. I had some problems with the fuel rail coming off. Everything was rusty, so I was breaking stuff. Got to know Quito, Ecuador really well. Had to stay there for like six weeks, roughly.

Crew Chief Eric: You fire up Flacco, you get them all fixed up. You’re headed out of Ecuador and next on your list of countries, [00:42:00] right? We did Columbia, we did Ecuador, now it’s Peru and then Bolivia. So what happens in Peru?

Joey Jordan IV: I spent quite a bit time in Ecuador. What I was starting to learn is that like traveling slow is like my style and what I like to do.

So it’s actually spending a lot longer time in just a few towns and then moving in big chunks, something American travelers, it takes time for them to learn. We like to just like go see and do all these things. The Ecuador is beautiful, cool car thing about Ecuador and their fuel is subsidized. So a gallon of diesel was 1.

Oh, a whole gallon.

Crew Chief Eric: Not today. It’s like six bucks a gallon here on the East coast.

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, I know, but it probably still there. Maybe it’s like a dollar 25. They had a big protest when they wanted to raise the price of gas down there. Not, not too long ago. So yeah, I was happy in Ecuador, just filling up my tanks of fuel, made a run into the Amazon in Ecuador.

And that was beautiful. I’ll never forget. I mean, I think this needs to be in a driving magazine is the most crazy thing I’ve seen from out of a windshield of a car, but I was [00:43:00] driving in the Amazon jungle, and I could see from Amazon jungle, a huge volcano covered in snow. It made me feel like I was on a different planet.

Like, how can I be seeing snow? I’m drenched in sweat right now. And I’m just looking at the snow covered mountain. It was beautiful to see. Like the jungle start to rise up into this mountain where there’s, there’s snow, but after I enjoyed Ecuador a lot, filled up all my spare jerrycans with 1 gallon diesel, I went into Peru and that’s where the driving personalities really started to come alive.

The Ecuadorian people are pretty calm and a little like to themselves. In their cities, they had some aggressive driving, but that kind of showed in the public, like street driving style, they would just be, they would kind of let you give you room. They weren’t too crazy. It was nice. They were just overall a nice experience.

And then I get into Peru, and it was the exact opposite. Anyone who complains about, like, LA traffic over here, they need to go take a journey and drive through Peru. There are people who are very, like, a bit more [00:44:00] brash, and they aren’t afraid to kind of say their opinion, and they kind of walk their own line.

You should appreciate all the rules that we have to follow in the United States. There are a beautiful thing. I used to hate them, but in Peru, they don’t follow any of the rules. Driving down a freeway, they don’t stay in the lane. If there’s traffic, they will take up every inch of the space, cross the whole shoulder, and then fight for every inch of space.

If you leave a gap, I’m talking like three feet, someone else is going to nose in. So you have to be on it. Just gas break, gas break, gas break.

Crew Chief Eric: Not too different than a Miata Cup race then.

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, more stressful. That was the most stressful driving I had to do. Driving through Lima, Peru. You have to pay so much attention and fight for every single inch.

That’s part of their style. They would come into an intersection like full speed. Like they’re going to run right through it and then slam on the brakes to try to scare you to slow down. So then they could jump in front of you. So stressful, stressful driving the whole time. How good were

Crew Chief Eric: the brakes on [00:45:00] Flacco?

Not, not so great, right?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah. I was afraid. Cause if you look on YouTube, you can look up high ACE nose wheelies. Where people put good brakes on them and it’ll break and it’ll do like a nose wheelie. So, Facka’s brakes are pretty good, but like, I felt like you’re on top of that thing. So I was a little worried about, I’m too hard.

It felt like you were going to go through the windshield. That was pretty interesting to see. And it just kind of showed through the people too. Like I love the proving people when I was outside of a car, cause they were just like. Almost more like your east coasters, like the mass holes, right? Like that’s them in Peru.

And then Ecuador is more like New Mexico or California, just like calm, like more rural, just like, yeah, go right ahead, buddy. Just

Crew Chief Eric: so did the car culture also shift as you got into Peru? Did you see anything different?

Joey Jordan IV: You started to see, I believe, I think it was in Peru or Bolivia, some French cars for the first time.

So some Renaults. Some Peugeots, so that was cool, not really too different between Ecuador and Peru. Later on, it starts to get a lot different with the car cultures with like the, just the different type of cars that they [00:46:00] drive. But a lot of like heavily modified Nissan Sentras, like the most basic car and they’re going to put it like a sticker and a huge muffler that they just found off of anything to make it louder.

They’ll modify anything like a Toyota Previa, they’ll modify, they’ll modify whatever they can do just because they like cars down there. And I think Peru definitely had more modifications. Like every taxi driver had their own little thing to their car, you know? Like, I think I remember seeing one little Nissan thing.

I think they called something else down there, like a Tsuru with like the tailpipes going out the side of the car. You know, why not? Side exit,

Crew Chief Eric: let’s go.

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, side exit. Yeah, that’s the, that’s the jargon term I was looking for. Just stuff like that. Like cars, we would be ashamed to be driving here. They flaunt it.

And make it cool and modify it in their own way.

Crew Chief Eric: So Peru, then you find yourself finally in Bolivia.

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah. So Bolivia, those were probably the craziest truck drivers. It’s the poorest country of all the ones in South America. One of the most [00:47:00] beautiful as well. Now along this journey, I’ve met a couple other friends that I was traveling with.

I met a snowboarder from Northern California that was kind of in and out of the van with me from Peru. into Bolivia, and I really loved Bolivia. It was like genuine, you know. A lot of the other places, like, Americans don’t travel to Peru so much, but they have a lot of, like, touristic areas, you know. And I was starting to learn that I really liked, like, the genuine little towns and those genuine experiences where, you know, kind of look at me differently because they don’t see many white people or Americans.

So Bolivia was a lot more of that. I didn’t feel like they were trying to sell stuff to me because they’re just not used to tourists.

Crew Chief Eric: While you were in Peru before you left, did you make it a point to go up into like Machu Picchu or anything like that? Or some of those more historic areas?

Joey Jordan IV: Part of me discovering myself because it was such a dream of mine to go to Machu Picchu, but from what I’ve learned on my travels and some of those similar places, the big pyramid in Mexico, Chichen Itza, I think, places like that, I never really enjoyed it that much.

I drove right by Machu Picchu and didn’t go. [00:48:00] And I did it as like an overt decision. Like, you know what, I don’t need to see that. I understand what it is. I’m going to get frustrated by it. I would rather spend the time and the money that I have in these smaller towns and just places that I end up finding.

So yeah, I skipped that. Flaco did break down in a city called Arequipa, Peru. Lost a water pump. Luckily caught it before it got too bad. And yeah, locating parts down there is just so hilarious. They have a million different shops and every shop, it’s very specific. You’ll have a shop for bolts that are metric and then a different shop with their own hours and their own different employees for bolts that are English or American.

There’s a place just for water pumps. I remember the word was Bombas and there’s a place just for everything else, but they all had their different hours. It’s basically like almost like a swap meet style that you go into there and just trying to locate. A water pump for the highest was a little challenging with my still, uh, kind of limited Spanish that doesn’t know car jargon at all in [00:49:00] Spanish.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. I was going to say, you’re not going to walk into the local auto zone or advanced or Toyota dealership and find the parts. It’s all bargaining and bartering.

Joey Jordan IV: That’s right. Yeah. And a lot of people looking at me like, what is this guy doing here? Like it was a lot of blue collar Peruvians and I don’t think they expected to see this kind of goofy white guy walking through asking for a bomba.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I think you mentioned earlier about doing your research. At least you did the research on the vehicle because like you said, you had a vehicle that was super common. So you didn’t drive in there with a Renault and people go, Oh, we don’t have parts for that. You know, the commonplace cars in there.

Volkswagen beetles and your truck and things like that, where parts are plentiful. I mean, you made the right move there. That’s for sure. Cause otherwise you blow a water pump on something else. Good luck.

Joey Jordan IV: I guess I should pat myself on the back for that amount of research because it did work out. Like I could always find parts.

It’s just, things just take a lot longer down there. And that taught me it was good. You just relax. If you don’t have the [00:50:00] right bolt or the right gasket. I think that was a problem there. I didn’t have the right gasket. I had to wait a week for the gasket to come in because the guy who has a gasket shop was on vacation and I was only gasket shop in town, things like that, you know, so, uh, you just learned to really go with the flow, but yeah, it was good that I had Flacco and a Toyota and a car that was down there a lot.

Crew Chief Eric: So now we’re in Bolivia and things get interesting, right?

Joey Jordan IV: They get interesting again, but in kind of a better, more lighthearted way, at least this time. One interesting thing about Bolivia too, is their gas is subsidized, but only for locals because they had too many people coming from Brazil and Peru buying their cheap gas and then driving back over.

So for me, there’s only like a few gas stations in the whole country that they can legally sell gas to tourists for. So that was a whole interesting deal. What I ended up doing was just trying to make friends with a local, paying them a little off the top and having them pretend like it was their car, and filling up that way.

So that was cool, got to meet a bunch of cool local [00:51:00] people, but also had some times where I was just out of gas. My go to move, there’s a few times it happened, I would just go into a bar, find someone who was, you know, Kind of lubed up and asked them if they want to make a little extra money by helping me out and getting me some gas.

We’d go fill up my jerry cans, fill up the gas, put it in my car, and then away we’d go. As I mentioned earlier, I had a friend I came with from Peru. I fell in love with the city called Sucre, Bolivia. Stayed there for a while and, um, met a lot of friends. A big thing that I knew I really wanted to do since the very beginning daydreamings of this trip when I was just like a 14, 15 years old when it was just like a thing I would do instead of studying biology was go to the Salt Flats.

A uni. That’s the name of the place. It’s the biggest salt flats in the world. Really beautiful. It looks like it’s just desolate. It looks like you’re on a different planet. And sometimes when it rains it gets that crazy mirrored effect. Like, and it’s just, just beautiful. So I knew I wanted to do that trip, but I kind of wanted some people to do it with.

I had a lot of solitude earlier. [00:52:00] Now it’s starting to flip to go back to more of a social travel. I ended up assembling a crew of 10 people. I met another Australian with a Range Rover, who was kind of doing the same thing. And we geared up and we go to camp out in these salt flats. And it was a dry season, so we weren’t going to get any of the rain.

It’s a lot of people who aren’t used to like camping so much. I think we had two German girls, two French girls, one that is now still currently my girlfriend and lives with me, and two Americans, three Australians. So it was quite the eclectic group. We were a good crew and we go out there and you basically can island hop.

There used to be these islands there and you like camp on the islands. And we’re not with the tour guides, which is great and beautiful. Cause that’s what I wanted. So I’m leading these group of cars and it’s like on the second or third day, we’re kind of cruising along an Island that we wanted to go camp back.

Cause it looked like a butt. So we wanted to see if it really was a butt. And so we drove over there and it wasn’t a butt. It was an Island. Basically I was driving the [00:53:00] road. The ground just falls out from underneath my car and comes to a pretty abrupt stop. We get out. My van is just completely stuck.

Like in the mud, basically the crust of salt fell through and broke. And it’s something I knew happened like in the wet season. They said, never drive close to the islands because this can happen. Like the water will seep through and the crust will fall. And you’ll go into like this mucky, mucky mud. And so the Australian loved it.

He was like, ha ha, your little Toyota can’t make it out of there now. Let me hook up my winch to you and pull you out. He was loving that I was stuck as a good friend would. And as soon as he tried to pull out, he cracked through with the winch. So now we had both cars stuck and the Range

Crew Chief Eric: Rover is much heavier than the Toyota.

Joey Jordan IV: Oh yeah. It started sinking fast. And like once it was in the mud, it was going further and deeper in. So we were stuck. We were 20 miles away from the nearest post where we knew we could probably find people, but we were 20 miles away from anybody. Stuck, stuck. We tried some pretty ingenuitive things. Like we buried a huge boulder.

We dug into the sand. Salt [00:54:00] bed and like into the mud and buried a huge boulder and try to winch to that boulder. We named it Rocky. He ended up being like another Wilson of that stuff experience. He was a table after that. He was, you know, a chair. But yeah, Rocky couldn’t pull us out. The Australian guy was super prepared and he had like, what are those jacks called?

Like they’re, you kind of ratchet them up and they go up on. Oh yeah, he had one of those, but everything would just sink through and it was getting worse. Like once he broke the crust, the mud was kind of like spreading. So yeah, we were stuck there and I was kind of like, great. This is an adventure. We got to figure this out.

And the Australian guy was loving it, but everyone else was like freaking out this crew of people. Like they don’t know how we’re going to get out of there. We’re trying to come up with some plans, but. Overall, it was a good, fun experience. The Australian guy actually had a satellite phone that he could send text messages to, but we’re still in a very remote area and we only have American numbers.

So how are they going to be able to contact this little dusty town called the Uni to send the right people to come and get us [00:55:00] without them sending like the military or somebody we didn’t want there. So, I think it was after day three or four. Of camping there and trying to figure different stuff out.

Finally, the Californian that I’ve been traveling with, his brother spoke pretty good Spanish. He was also an avid traveler, figured out to hire like, I don’t know what they did, but just some guys to come out in their trucks and dig us out of there. What we essentially had to do is build another road underneath the car.

So we would dig, they had a bunch of jacks, we’d lift up the car a little bit and then put rocks underneath it. And then put it down, then lift up the other side, put rocks underneath it. And we just kept doing that and the rocks would sink, but eventually that would settle until we built the road out of all the rocks on butt Island.

Um, so that took, uh, that took like a good day’s work. I think we finished in the middle of the night. Just in time when we started to run out of, you know, some essentials, uh, we still had a decent amount of water. We’re out of beer at that point and almost out of pasta. So, so did you

Crew Chief Eric: use the Land Rover still to pull the Toyota or do you have to do the work for both cars?

Joey Jordan IV: [00:56:00] Actually, we use one of their trucks and a Land Rover to pull me out. But Flacco got out pretty easily once they were like, they knew where the solid ground was, the locals, they were like kicking it and they knew where they could kind of set up from and anchor down. Yeah, that was a pretty wild experience, you know, just kind of being stranded 20 miles from people.

We were considering a lot of things like, all right, do we send someone out to go walk to that place where we think there’s people in a really brutal climate? Like with a bunch of water, do we send them to go tell them that we’re stuck? We consider that we were pretty close to doing that, but the weather there was extremely harsh because the salt is like a mirror for the sun, but it was also extremely cold.

It’d get down to freezing at night and very windy. So there’s all the extremes of temperature and climate. There’s a road probably like a mile away, cars would drive maybe twice a day on, that we learned after like day two or three. And one day I don’t think they drove at all, so we built a sign like with cardboard and a sharpie out of Spanish like, please help us.

I was on duty at the sign when a car came and they stopped and talked [00:57:00] to us. Problem was, they didn’t speak Spanish, they spoke Incan. And they were terrified of us. I don’t speak any Incan. That was like the month two of knowing that the Incans had their own language and people still spoke it down there.

So yeah, they drove off scared and just drove away from us. I thought we were going to like rob them or we were like some cannibals or something. Um, didn’t help us, but it was just interesting to consider all those.

Crew Chief Eric: So after you pull Flacco out of the muck and the mire, did he fire right back up and continue the journey or did you have to fix it before you kept going?

Joey Jordan IV: No, he was fine. Like we dug a hole, I think, from the exhaust. We were actually able to run it and like turn on the heater and stuff and use it. It was just the bed was really crooked and like the kitchen, you know, you had to build something for the stove to make sure it was flat. It ran fine. I drove it out of there.

We just had to get a very extensive like bath because it’s covered in like salt, essentially, and he’s already a rust bucket. So [00:58:00] we tried to wash it as best I could. I remember the guy like power washing it like chunks of rust were just flying everywhere. I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know if this is doing any good or bad.

Like this power wash is a little too aggressive, but uh.

Crew Chief Eric: So Bolivia is not where the journey ends. So where did you go from there?

Joey Jordan IV: I think some of that crew was mad at me, so we parted ways with some of them because I got everyone stuck. Then I narrowed down to a group of five of us and we went into Chile or Chile.

Things really changed there quickly. It’s a much more advanced country. I kind of needed that at that point after slugging it for a while like a good like six months up to that point of not living with nice things at all. Chile was really cool. You know they had really interesting things as you’re going through the Andes.

They had roads that actually had more grip in the corners. So it’d be safer. So it was like a softer compound of asphalt and it was a different color. So it’d be like safer and you could go through the corners a little bit quicker. So that was pretty cool. But there’s a lot of things in Chile that are much more advanced and like more advanced in a [00:59:00] lot of ways and things that we have here, like free wifi everywhere.

The roads were way better than the roads in California. And just did a lot of surfing, hanging out the cars there started to get nicer. You started to see newer cars. I didn’t get to see it, but they had a really cool racing series where they race a bunch of Fiat’s. You can find it by reverse mapping it through Wikipedia.

I remember seeing these videos of them racing them, like in a Hawaiian shirt and just like a neck roll helmet with no visor. And they’re racing these guys. Through dirt and asphalt and like a mixed like road course right on the coast of the ocean. There’s definitely a very alive and well like car culture there.

I just didn’t get to explore as much. But then from Chile, I went into Argentina for kind of the last leg of my trip. Flaco and me, our honeymoon phase is long gone. He had one more cross the Andes in him. I mean, in Bolivia was up to 16, 000 feet. It started its life with 91 horsepower, 6, 000 feet elevation.

I don’t know. It felt like it had four horsepower. [01:00:00] Yeah. Uh, cross the Andes again from Chile to Argentina and Argentina almost felt like Europe, you know,

Crew Chief Eric: there’s a lot of Italian and German expats in Argentina.

Joey Jordan IV: Yes, there is. Yes, there is. Yeah. And everything’s like really nice and new except for one key thing.

And that is their cars. They have a heavy tax on new cars. So they have the coolest, oldest cars there. All the cars are like stuck in like the seventies and eighties and they just keep them alive. I loved just being on the streets and seeing cars. I don’t even know what they were driving by, like a bunch of really old French cars, bunch of old Fiat’s, but just had so much more character and style.

I think that’s when I like cemented in, like, I think I just like older cars now, you know?

Crew Chief Eric: So did you make it to your goal of getting to Patagonia?

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, I did. Despite Flacco trying to make that not happen. I was getting flat tires. It was starting to overheat a lot for mysterious reasons. It was just the rust issues.

Like I couldn’t even close one door. Hardly things were just [01:01:00] falling apart after the salt flats on poor Flacco. You know, I hung on Argentina for a while. Drank cheap wine, ate cheap steak, and then I parted ways with everyone that I knew because I kind of wanted to do this end journey on my own. Really the mountain that I was going for in Patagonia is called Mount Fitz Roy.

I eventually made it there and that was a really cool feeling to make it and finish it. The whole reason why Trip started was because I was in a science class when I was probably 14 years old, wasn’t paying attention to some documentary that was put on. And they showed a clip of what I would later learn to be Mount Fitz Roy.

And there was a road leading up to it. And the road looks so like nice. Like it looked like a really cool road, but this mountain just like grabbed at me. And I was like, wow, where’s that? And they started talking about Patagonia. Then I opened up my science book and I found where Patagonia was. And I saw it was all collected by land.

And So my first thought happened from Mount Fitz Roy. Ever since that moment, I started kind of daydreaming about the ability to drive all the way down there with some adventure. [01:02:00] I never really gave it any weight to, cause I was pursuing racing until my breakup with racing happened. It was a pretty powerful moment to be seeing my van at the side of that road from the same image that like it looked exactly the same as the documentary that we watched.

It was pretty powerful too because I felt like I was free from this big journey that I did. You know, I had to go back to Ecuador after I got robbed because I couldn’t go the rest of my life wondering what if I finished. Now the story was done and I was free from that burden of what if I saw my mountain.

Great, great feeling. Flaca was done. I was done at that point and then I made my way back home. Did you

Crew Chief Eric: do like Richard Hammond, bring it home with you and now it’s a prized possession or anything?

Joey Jordan IV: Sold the van.

Crew Chief Eric: So you sold the van at the end of it all, huh?

Joey Jordan IV: I love Flacco and great great car and like I owe him so much my perspective that I have now like I was forever changed from that trip, you know, and I have all the love for him, but I was ready to part ways, you know, it was like it [01:03:00] wasn’t gonna be worth the trouble.

It was like it was a miracle it made it down there. But yeah, I ended up selling it to some rock climbers down there, a couple of Americans. That’s kind of the only way you can do it, is sell it to other people who are from America down there. Yeah, I sold it to some like ranch and had a horseback out of there where I sold it to them.

And that was it. And I was pretty ready to come home after that.

Crew Chief Eric: So obviously, You think about it often. It’s changed your whole life and your whole latitude. It’s redefined who you are as a person, especially, you know, you know, now is let’s call it a more mature adult, right? Then when you started the whole trip,

Joey Jordan IV: barely,

Crew Chief Eric: but you found yourself back in racing again, did it change the way you look at racing?

Did it change cars for you? I mean, how did it change that side of you now that you find yourself back in that world again?

Joey Jordan IV: It kind of showed me how to re engage. Racing in a different way, how to have a different relationship with it. And it showed me even when I try, I can’t run from cars and racing. I, there’s a genuine love and [01:04:00] passion for the sport, the activity for cars.

And I can’t run from it. The problems that caused me to leave racing aren’t things that I should just bury away. They’re things that I should try to maybe address and help kind of change and mold my own path in this racing world. I think it just gave me. A good, fresh perspective. That’s it. Yeah. So

Crew Chief Eric: if you had to do it all over again, knowing what you know now, would you do it and what would you do different?

Joey Jordan IV: Oh yeah. Of course I would do it with all the cracked ribs and robberies and all of it. Absolutely. But the knowledge I have now, I probably wouldn’t take that beat up of a car. Flacco gave me a little too many adventures. And I would just travel a lot slower, not try to like bounce around so much because I really enjoyed the time to think.

If I would do it again, I think I would fly to a country, just buy one of their cars there, and just travel around that one country in their car. Because crossing the borders was such a crazy, crazy headache. So if that’s [01:05:00] the

Crew Chief Eric: case, what would you buy now, knowing what’s available down there?

Joey Jordan IV: I think I would fly in and see what everyone else is driving.

I would drive with the taxis we’re driving. So you got to get a

Crew Chief Eric: Toyota Hilux. I mean, come on.

Joey Jordan IV: Yeah, but those are a hot commodity down there. I’d rather be like in a tiny, small car and like look hilarious. I don’t know. I think I’d get an old taxi car or an old ambulance, you know? Or just see what just kind of catches my eye and looks cool.

It’s a lot easier to buy a car in the same country and then sell it. And because I learned I like to travel slow, like I could spend six months in just Peru or even longer. So yeah, I think that’s what I would change. But

Crew Chief Eric: do you think you’ll go back?

Joey Jordan IV: Absolutely. Certain countries I’m more eager to go back than others.

But absolutely love to go back. I kind of want to make some plans. If I can find some more remote work, I want to move to La Paz, Bolivia for like a few months because it’s one of the craziest cities ever. It’s like Disneyland. They go around on gondolas. So like the things that you go on, like in a ski lift, that’s their taxis.

Cause it’s like sitting in this bowl. So they just have gondolas [01:06:00] taking people everywhere. It’s just such a bizarre, weird, cool city. I would like to sit there for a few months and see where my mind goes. And I know they have some cool racing in Bolivia as well. So it’d be cool to check that out. Towards the end of my trip, when I started to learn what I liked about that journey, I got to spend six months about just.

kind of thinking, especially on the back of almost dying, thinking I was going to die. And that was a beautiful thing. So I do it again, do it slower. Don’t care about where I go, how I get there. Spend some really good quality time with myself and some cool other cultures.

Crew Chief Eric: I think there’s some important valuable points there.

It’s been said probably a million times if it’s been said once, right? It’s not about the destination. It’s all about the journey, but I think you brought something else up. That’s very important that I’ve said before, even on this show, which is driving that love of driving. Getting behind the wheel, not really knowing where you’re going.

Joey Jordan IV: We just get caught up on the rat race and we just kind of check the next box.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re not having to be beholden to your [01:07:00] phone or people or email and all this stuff. And the day to day grind, just getting behind the wheel and going somewhere. There’s just something about that. That’s undescribable. You know, a lot of people talk about, well, I can’t stand to drive.

I can’t wait for autonomous driving vehicles and all this kind of stuff. And I say to myself, You’re missing out. You’re missing the bigger picture. Those epic road trips are what it’s really all about. I mean, you don’t get the same experience on a plane, right? You take off, you float, you come back down.

It’s not the same thing. Yeah. Suddenly in a different place. But to your point, this is pretty extreme. It’s. Absolutely epic, but so many life lessons learned so many things that you’ll look back on forever and you can pass that on to other people. So I can’t thank you enough for coming on and sharing this story with us.

And I really hope that we can get together again and talk more about your love of driving and how that’s changed your framework and how it’s changed your mentality and how it’s Helping you change the world of racing. Cause I think you have some thoughts on that. So I don’t want to [01:08:00] give away too many things, but I think this is super cool.

Joey Jordan IV: Yes. Yes. Thank you for having me on and yeah, let’s, uh, get a little bit of my, uh, adventure perspective into today’s racing. I think we could do some cool stuff. Talk about some cool things, put all my six months of introspective thought into work. And, uh, yeah, just want to touch on one last point, like what you said about cars and with the road trips, it is complete freedom.

I really fell in love with just cars in general and their ability to kind of just transport you to places you would never even dream of. You didn’t even know existed. And those are the parts of my trip that I valued the most was, you know, if I flew there, I’d have to take these buses and they would, they only go on certain roads.

I had families take me in, you know, like from a little farming village, I met all these people and saw these cool places because the freedom that the car had. Can give you

Crew Chief Eric: like I always say, cars are not appliances. They are tools to be used for all sorts of different things, including adventures like this.

So listeners, [01:09:00] if you want to learn more about Joey and his adventures, you can hit him up on social media on Instagram at Joey Jordan IV, that’s Joey Jordan, the fourth, or if you’re in the LA area, stop by and request him as your coach at the Porsche experience center in LA. So Joey, again, I can’t thank you enough for coming on the show.

It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Joey Jordan IV: Thank you so much, Eric. I look forward to talking to all you guys soon.

Crew Chief Brad: 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 at Grand Touring Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, You can call or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix. And we wanted to [01:10:00] remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization. And our goal is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge. As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for bonus and behind the scenes content, extra goodies, and GTM swag.

For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of Fig Newtons, gummy bears, and Monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Highlights

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

  • 00:00 Introduction to BreakFix Podcast
  • 01:08 Meet Joey Jordan: From GT Racing to South America
  • 02:13 The Journey Begins: Driving to South America
  • 03:07 Adventures in Mexico: Surfing and WRC
  • 05:03 Travel Companions and Belizean Discoveries
  • 13:46 Challenges in Nicaragua and Costa Rica
  • 16:22 Ingenious Modifications and Border Troubles
  • 22:41 Panama: Soul Searching and Shipping Plans
  • 23:46 Colombian Hardships: Robbery and Recovery
  • 36:51 Returning to California
  • 37:49 Back to Ecuador
  • 39:14 Reuniting with Flacco
  • 41:57 Challenges in Peru
  • 46:48 Adventures in Bolivia
  • 58:21 Exploring Chile
  • 59:39 Final Leg in Argentina
  • 01:03:24 Reflecting on the Journey
  • 01:05:34 Future Plans and Final Thoughts

Bonus Content

There's more to this story!

Be sure to check out the behind the scenes for this episode, filled with extras, bloopers, and other great moments not found in the final version. Become a Break/Fix VIP today by joining our Patreon.

All of our BEHIND THE SCENES (BTS) Break/Fix episodes are raw and unedited, and expressly shared with the permission and consent of our guests.

Learn More

Learn more about the might Toyota HiAce

To keep up with Joey, tune into SRO Motorsports TC America series and watch his progress, or hit him up on social @joeyjordaniv on Instagram. And stay tuned for future episode with Joey where we discuss some of his ideas for the future of Motorsports. 

Joey’s journey took a dark turn in Nicaragua, where political protests and roadblocks made travel dangerous. He needed to reach Costa Rica for another race, but at the border, officials refused entry – Costa Rica bans right-hand-drive vehicles. Trapped between two countries, Joey hatched a wild plan: fabricate a second steering wheel on the left side of Flacco.

In a diesel-soaked parking lot, local mechanics welded a second steering rack, connected by pulleys and belts. The pedals remained on the right. Joey drove solo, steering from the left while operating the clutch and throttle with his left hand. “It was like driving a stick shift with one hand while steering with the other,” he said. “Top Gear-style chaos.”

Joey Jordan and his Toyota HiAce Flaco getting stuck in the sand
Photo courtesy Joey Jordan IV

Border Trouble and No-Man’s Land

Joey and a Canadian friend attempted to cross into Costa Rica at midnight, hoping the fake dash would fool border agents. They made it through eight checkpoints before “El Jefe” spotted the missing pedals. Joey was denied entry and sent back – only to find Nicaragua had changed its laws and now banned right-hand-drive vehicles too.

Stuck in a 200-yard strip of no-man’s land between countries, Joey dubbed it “Nicarica.” He spent days in a fenced yard with other stranded travelers, eventually negotiating to tow Flacco across Costa Rica into Panama – for $4,000.


Panama and the Darien Gap

In Panama, Joey regrouped. He spearfished, surfed, and reflected. “I was young, 23, just trying to figure out my life,” he said. But the journey wasn’t over. To reach Colombia, he had to ship Flacco across the infamous Darien Gap – a jungle so treacherous it’s impassable by vehicle.

Joey Jordan and his Toyota HiAce Flaco setting off into the mountains
Photo courtesy Joey Jordan IV

Colombia and Beyond

By the time Joey reached Colombia, he had mastered vanlife. He lived cheaply, harvested coconuts, and spearfished for food. Racing felt distant, but cars remained central. He observed the improvisational genius of Central American mechanics – hay-stuffed tires, propane conversions, and roadside repairs. “Everyone’s a mechanic down there,” he said. “You have to be.” As he ventured deeper into South America, Joey saw car culture evolve – more personality, more passion, and more stories waiting to be told.

Joey Jordan’s journey wasn’t just a road trip – it was a soul-searching, wrench-turning, volcano-dodging odyssey. From heartbreak to horsepower, Flacco carried him through it all. And somewhere along the way, Joey found not just his way back to motorsports – but back to himself.


The following content has been brought to you by SRO Motorsports America and their partners at AWS, Crowdstrike, Fanatec, Pirelli, and the Skip Barber Racing School.

From Moped to Motorsport Legend: The Andy Pilgrim Story

What do the 12 Hours of Sebring, Petit Le Mans, the Rolex 24, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, GT races on five continents, Pikes Peak, and NASCAR all have in common? One British-born driver who’s raced – and often won – across them all: Andy Pilgrim.

In this episode of the Break/Fix podcast, we dive into the remarkable journey of a man who went from a car-obsessed toddler in the UK to a motorsports icon in America. His story is one of grit, humor, and relentless passion for anything with an engine.

Andy’s first words weren’t “mommy” or “daddy”—they were “Mike Hawthorne,” shouted in excitement while listening to a race on the radio. His parents, who had zero interest in cars, were baffled. But for Andy, the obsession was instant and irreversible. He’d jump into visitors’ cars like a loyal dog, fascinated by the sounds and smells of machinery.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

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With no family ties to racing, Andy’s first taste of speed came via a £3 moped he rebuilt himself. Later, as a young computer programmer, he used his earnings to enter local motorcycle races. Riding to the track, racing, and then riding home – if he didn’t crash – was the norm. Sometimes, a friend with a bread delivery van would haul his bike, giving Andy the best-smelling ride in the paddock.

Spotlight

Synopsis

In this episode of Break/Fix, Andy Pilgrim, a renowned British-born racing driver, shares his inspirational story. Andy discusses his early fascination with cars and motorcycles, his unexpected start in racing during his late 20s, and his rise through the ranks to become a celebrated driver in series like the IMSA and SRO Motorsports. He also shares insights on his driving experiences and techniques, the differences between front-engine and mid-engine Corvettes, and the importance of data in modern racing. Andy also talks about his work with the Traffic Safety Education Foundation, aiming to improve driving safety through education. The episode underscores Andy’s dedication to racing, his continuous learning approach, and his commitment to giving back to the community.

  • Let’s talk about a little lad named Andy, back in the UK… were you always interested in cars? What kinds of cars or drivers inspired you to get into racing?
  • You came to the states in the 1980s as a computer programmer, becoming a US citizen in 1998; how did you get started in the world of Motorsports? 
  • How did you go from grassroots racing to the larger endurance stage? What was that like? Who did you study under?
  • Let’s talk more about your racing experience, Team Cadillac and Corvette Racing. Winner of the 12 hrs of Sebring, 2 wins at the Petit LeMans Road Atlanta, 3 wins at the 24 hrs of Rolex, 1 overall, 2 GT class; 5 podiums at the 24 hrs of LeMans. 
  • You’ve been involved for many years with the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park. Talk to us about the track, and how a Test Track differs from a Race Track?
  • C7 vs C8 Corvette – your thoughts?
  • You also give back to the community at large through your Traffic Safety Education Foundation – what this is all about?
  • Where is Andy now?  Your involvement in GT3/GT4 racing, Ferrari & Porsche and in racing in the SRO GT America, International GT and GT Celebration series this year. 

Transcript

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

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

Crew Chief Eric: 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 GT America us and be sure to follow them on social at GT America, on Twitter and Instagram at SRO GT America on Facebook.

and catch live coverage of the races on their YouTube channel at GT World.[00:01:00]

The 12 Hours of Sebring, Petit Le Mans, the Rolex 24, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, GT races on five continents, the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, and NASCAR. What do all these have in common? Well, they have a British born racing driver who has competed in all of them, won many, some more than once. Some of you might know him best from his days with Team Cadillac and Corvette Racing.

That’s right. Our guest on Brake Fix tonight is the legendary Andy Pilgrim. So welcome to the show, Andy.

Andy Pilgrim: Thanks, Eric. Wow, what an introduction. Thank you.

Crew Chief Eric: So like every good Brake Fix story, we always love to start with an origin. So let’s talk about a little lad named Andy back in the UK. Were you always interested in cars?

Andy Pilgrim: Yes, absolutely. I was always interested in cars. It was quite befuddling to my parents who had absolutely no interest in it whatsoever. [00:02:00] According to my mother, she was ironing and I was in my crib, supposedly. I hadn’t said anything, mommy, daddy, nothing. Listening to the radio, apparently there was a race on the radio, probably Formula 1 or something back in, this would be the 19, late 50s.

Mike Hawthorne was a racer back then. According to my mom, she said suddenly from nowhere I was sort of standing in the curb. I started like jumping up and down. My first words, I said my Hawthorne, my Hawthorne, my hor, my Hawthorne. Over and over and over again. Now I kind of worried my father because he was a little concerned, you know, about this.

You know, she assured him that she didn’t know my callthorne and that apparently was my first words. So it’s pretty much been downhill since then, mate.

Crew Chief Eric: So, were there any cars that inspired you as well outside of the formula One.

Andy Pilgrim: Well, it was a radio, you know, radio, we didn’t, we didn’t actually have a TV, honestly, back then, and the noises, I started making car noises, and it was just fascinating to me, as a child, I just liked the cars, and I was fascinated with cars, I [00:03:00] would follow cars, I would look at cars, I would jump in people’s cars, if they came to visit, I would, like a dog, you know, the dog goes out, it jumps in a car, I was the kid, I ran out, I went, jumped in the car, when they were leaving, And it’s like, you know, let’s go for a ride type of thing.

You know, if someone had a car, we had a car. I don’t know where it really came from. There was no racing or anything in the family. The local racetrack had motorcycle road races. My dad liked motorcycle. He never was interested in cars at all. He did take me to watch motorcycle road races when I was very young.

You know, that’s probably the only connection with racing that I have.

Crew Chief Eric: So is that where you got interested in motorcycles? Because that’s another passion of yours is the two wheeled variety of vehicles.

Andy Pilgrim: Yeah, definitely that became an interest just in the sense of listening to the bikes, uh, having friends when I was old enough to think about getting a moped or something very, very inexpensive.

Secondhand transportation, the moped was the way to go 50 cc’s, zero to 25 miles an hour down a cliff in a week. It was [00:04:00] pretty ridiculous. The mopeds were. Very, very, very slow, but it was anything with an engine fascinated certain young lads. I was one of those young lads. And if somebody had a something with an engine, you just stand around and look at it, you know, and see, when’s it going to start?

Can I have a ride? And it was usually at that point, of course, early days mopeds.

Crew Chief Eric: So we’ve talked to other guests on the show that came from the UK and they said turning wrenches wasn’t a passion. It was part of the lifestyle, right? Cause a lot of the cars were, let’s say unreliable and things like that.

So did you find yourself turning wrenches at an early age, maybe working on your family car?

Andy Pilgrim: No, my dad didn’t like cars. He was sort of a chemist. His brain was sort of more a chemical brain. He had no interest in the car aspect. He was engineering based. He would build furniture or he would do some scrap metal sculptures for fun and stuff in his garage, but not the car stuff.

I only got involved in cars once I had a paper round and then I had a bicycle. And then I sold, eventually I sold a bicycle to buy a very cheap moped. [00:05:00] Literally it was 3 to buy this thing. And it had to be rebuilt. So I had to try and learn how to rebuild the engine to make it run. And that’s essentially where it started.

But turning wrenches was something I had to do. Once I did try to start racing something that then I had to work on it myself. Of course. Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: So at what age did you find yourself beginning to race? Was that in your teenage years or?

Andy Pilgrim: No, not at all. I ended up out of college. I went into computer programming, but I had no wheels to speak of at that time, except a secondhand motorcycle.

And I ended up taking that bike with the money that I started earning as a programmer, stuck some numbers on it and found myself at a local racetrack and ended up entering some races. This was mortifying to my parents. I mean, they were like, what on earth are you thinking? This is crazy. It’s dangerous and all this stuff.

But I was on the street riding a guy that I knew who was the manager of the Kawasaki dealership. He saw [00:06:00] me riding like a moron on the street and when he saw me at the dealership, he basically, you know, stuck me up against the wall. And if I see you riding like an idiot, you’re going to kill yourself. If you think you’re fast, get yourself on the racetrack.

I don’t ride like a moron. That’s sort of stuck with me because I was scared of him and I ended up trying to get my bike on the racetrack. It wasn’t particularly reliable. It wasn’t new. It was a seven, eight year old thing. I ended up wobbling through some races and early, fairly early on, I ended up winning the class.

It was a lower class bike, but I ended up scrapping with guys. And I was quick, quick enough to win, you know, win races from very, very, very early, just because I was probably nuts. I mean, because 55 percent of the races are in the wet. So it was an interesting beginning, but that’s how it started was when I had enough money, had a job, earned money, spent the money on the motorcycle to try and race.

I didn’t have a truck trailer, nothing. I either wrote it to the [00:07:00] races. Which was nuts because then you were just standing around in the wet and cold. Then you’d race it and then ride it home if you didn’t crash it. If I was lucky, a friend with a van who had a bread round at three o’clock in the morning, he was done with his bread round.

He’d come to the house, pick up the bike. I’d pay him gas money and drop me off at the racetrack. I had the best smelling motorcycle in the paddock. It smelled like bread. Everyone come by like, who’s baking bread? It’s like, you know, so it was pretty funny actually.

Crew Chief Eric: So this is the, let’s say late seventies at this point, right?

Andy Pilgrim: Late seventies into 1980, into 1980. I ended up getting sponsored after a year, year and a half. I was in the British production bike championship in the second year. I basically bought this. Newer bike, and was in the British 500cc production championship, ended up finishing second in the British championship, very competitive, and that was sort of into 1981, and then I got a job offer to come to the US as a computer programmer.

That’s where the switch happened over here. So. After less than two and a half years racing stuff and working full time in England, and then I [00:08:00] suddenly found myself in the U. S. I’d always wanted to come here. Always wanted to come to the U. S. Offered the job, you come over here and you start with a one year contract.

And I had an older friend of the family who was probably 10 years older than me. He was like an older brother, if you like. He went to California, had stories of the sunshine and warmth. And I hated cold weather. I still can’t stand cold weather. I’d always had this, probably from eight years old, I’d had this dream watching American shows on television in England when we had, you know, when we got TV and stuff.

Um, it was just, uh, it was just, I’d always wanted to come here. And little did I know at the time when I got into computer programming, that was a, almost a direct ticket to the U. S. because there weren’t enough. Programmers coming out of the U. S. education system that still aren’t. So I was one of those very lucky early ones to come in with the, uh, trade, if you like, to be a programmer.

And that’s how I got to the U. S.

Crew Chief Eric: So you hit the shores and you quickly realized America is huge and you need a car. So what was the first car you bought when you got here?

Andy Pilgrim: I was at Pontiac in Michigan as a computer [00:09:00] programmer, GM Pontiac, which was kind of strange. And I ended up back there as a racer years later and stuff.

One of the people in the office, her husband was selling their car, a 1972 Chevy Malibu Classic, and it had done a lot of miles, but it had done long runs. I guess it was an hour trip to work and back or something. And they said the car was pretty good. And I paid a thousand, I think, no, 500. I paid 500 for the car.

And it lasted me 45, 000 miles. It was amazing. That car was great. All I kept to do is put tires on it and brakes occasionally. But, uh, yeah, second hand tires. Couldn’t afford the new ones, but it was, uh, I was on first name basis with the local scrap yard and I go to look for tires for the car. Yeah. And I went from Michigan to El Paso after a year, Michigan winter just about killed me.

So I ended up going down to El Paso for my next contract. There was no racing or anything at this point.

Crew Chief Eric: So it’s kind of funny if our listeners were paying attention, your history with GM goes way back and we’re going to dive into that a little bit

Andy Pilgrim: more. If you think about it, yes. Sure.

Crew Chief Eric: The part of your story that really [00:10:00] engaged me that I found endearing and it speaks to me on a level growing VW Porsche Audi family is that when we first met many years ago, you told me the story about how you did get into racing in the United States and you started in two things.

A autocross and B with a Volkswagen GTI.

Andy Pilgrim: Yeah. The first go around in the Volkswagen GTI. So I was in El Paso. Everything was, uh, looking interesting and the Chevy Malibu classic was getting a little long in the tooth. And so eventually I thought, you know, a Volkswagen GTI was like, it was a Lamborghini as far as anything from a kid from the UK could even dream about.

And even though the US GTR wasn’t as light and it wasn’t as powerful as the European version, it was just wow to me. This 1983 car that I bought probably at the end of 1982 in El Paso, and it was a brand new car. And I was like, Oh, I couldn’t believe it. So I run around on that thing for a while. And [00:11:00] one day going down I 10, I saw a C 3 Corvette flying across a parking lot at Silla Vista Mall in El Paso.

And I thought, what the heck? And I looked, and I saw cones, and I saw this car. Parking lot was pretty much empty. I just went, what is that? So I got off the freeway, went around and, and looked. Sure, sure enough, it was an S C C A autocross going on, literally that by luck going by. And I didn’t know what A C C A was.

I didn’t know what autocross was. I had no idea that this was the local chapter of S E C A and their, their autocross was going on at Cali. I joined S E C A and the next time they had an autocross, I showed up with my Volkswagen Rabbit, and that’s how Autocross started. And that was 1983. Yep. And that was so much fun.

Great people. I still remember those, those people from there. They were wonderful.

Crew Chief Eric: So you got all your car control under wraps. You learned how to go fast in a front wheel drive. How do you move from, let’s say the grassroots world of autocross to the larger stage, not jumping all the way forward to endurance and that, but how did you make that [00:12:00] progression from autocross to becoming a professional driver?

Andy Pilgrim: The autocross availability for space in El Paso is limited. So you go further afield. Roswell, New Mexico was one of the places, you know, alien central UFOs and all that stuff. And I didn’t know about that connection when we went to Roswell, but it was a couple of hours drive out of El Paso to Roswell. 10 people would make these treks out to Roswell and Clovis Air Force Base, which was further away.

So we went to Roswell Pettengill. Jim Pattengill wrote for Grassroots Motorsports, the magazine, great magazine. He saw me at Roswell. Now the thing with Roswell was it was a triangle of a disused old airfield from Second World War training base probably or something like that. They had about seven cones.

And they have this triangle, like half a mile, literally speaking, it was a hundred mile an hour slalom and another 80 mile an hour slalom and 120 degree corners at each, each point, it was just stupid. [00:13:00] So I’m in this 90 horsepower rabbit screaming along going through the autocross on three wheels and all this stuff.

Jim Pattengill came up to me and said, you know, you’re pretty quick. You should try racing. And I said, well, you’ve got any money. I’ll be happy to do that because I don’t have any money. We had a nice, really nice conversation. And he said, well, you know, just keep doing what you do. It’s great. You know, you’re coming back.

And I did come back three months later to another event. They, we’ve got, they had another event three months later and we trucked back up. I didn’t think really, I didn’t think about Jim Pattengill in the meantime, he came up during that event and showed me a thing in grassroots motorsports where. A guy was selling a Renault cup and he took the time to explain this is an IMSA series, Renault Cup, Renault Alliances on the west coast and Renault Encores on the east coast.

Renault supports it and these cars are street legal and this car is second hand for 6, 500 bucks. Because I told him I said I don’t want to race for trophies. Got to race for [00:14:00] money. If there’s any chance to do anything with racing, you know, we had to chat and I said, I didn’t, I wouldn’t want to race for trophies and things.

I need to, if I’m any good, I want to learn as fast as possible. If I’m any good and not waste my whole life or money doing it. So he gave me the ad. I called the guy, I was in Nevada. Long story short, I borrowed some money off a bank manager in El Paso. I only had 3, 500 in savings, I remember. This guy lent me 3, 000 for furniture for my apartment.

It was the other half of the car, essentially, and gave me a bit of spare money for the first race. And so I figured if he ever came to the house and checked the car, I’d take the seats out of the race car and put them in the living room and say, furniture. So that’s what happened. And I got this Renault Cup car, drove it to the races, and that’s how it started.

Essentially, the first race was Riverside, California, in 1984, was the first round of the West Coast Series. 51 cars entered. It was actually on ESPN. Believe it or not, that race was on TV. Crazy. I [00:15:00] ended up qualifying 18th out of 51, and I finished 9th, and I won 500. I mean, I was sleeping in the car or we’d have like 12 of us in one hotel room or something.

Cause you know, there was a bunch of guys that were just, we didn’t have the, you know, a lot of money and where we could save money. We would, I mean that 500, I thought I won the Indy 500. Honestly, it was like 146 for a set of four tires for that car. I still have a receipt. So 500 was tremendous and I didn’t crash the car.

Otherwise it’d be taking a bus home. And that would have been it. But I managed to make it through that year with the car, got a couple of podiums in that year, one rookie of the year with that car. That was the end of 1984. 85, I did a couple more Renault Cup races, but sold the car for 3, 000. And that money, having sold the car was the money that I put into buying two weekends in a Firestone Firehawk car in 1986.

And that sort of was that transition because the rental [00:16:00] car series died and I was like, Oh, well, that might be it for racing did a bit of NCCA racing with a Mustang, a dealer out of Texas, sort of had a car and he said you can drive my car. That was 85. Met somebody who prepared that Mustang, who was also preparing Pontiacs in the Firestone Fire series.

I knew nothing about that. At the end of the season, he said, you know, blah, blah, what are you going to do? You’ve really done quite well in that Mustang. And I said, well, I’ve got 3, 000. And he called me and said, that’ll buy you two races at the beginning of 1986. Season in a fire some fire if you want to do it.

And that was all savings. I had nothing outside. Nothing else. That was all my savings. That’s how I got into that series. I’ll stop there instead of just dribbling along the whole way.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, it brings up a very good segue, which is did you practice your craft on your own back then? There was no data. So you’re obviously driving by feel or did you have coaches?

Did you have people helping you along or was it all 1 race at a time? School of hard knocks.

Andy Pilgrim: I [00:17:00] mean, there was no coach motorcycles. And I had an idea about apexing, but I didn’t even call it an apex because I was, you know, you go from outside to inside to outside and you’ve, some corners are different to others.

And no, I didn’t know anybody to do anything like, you know, I think most people guys back then they did, they just learned, they just were quick and. They got quicker and they learned and it became more structured over the years. It became way more structured, as you say, with data and coaches and things like that.

Crew Chief Eric: So did you find yourself following anyone using them as like a lead follow as an example?

Andy Pilgrim: Oh, 150%. If someone caught me up, instead of trying to block them, I’d let them by and try and learn where they were quicker. And that’s exactly what I did. And that wasn’t like I was the fastest guy out there.

Immediately. I had to learn how to handle the car fast corners in those cars, kind of like a Mazda Miata. You just kind of, I want to say, throw it in, but you drifted in. You want that very slight drift angle all the way through these fast corners. That takes a little bit of understanding because you can over over rotate the car and crash it and I’m done [00:18:00] eventually by following figured it out.

Guys that I knew were quick. And I would ask people who’s, you know, you’d look at the timesheet and you’d, you’d slowly progress up the timesheet, figure out how to get there. If you could.

Crew Chief Eric: So at this point, you’re deeper into the racing world. Did you have any heroes or idols or even anybody you looked up to as a kid that you were still looking up to in the larger kind of circus that is the motor sports world?

Andy Pilgrim: It’s funny. I didn’t relay anything sort of. I don’t know why it was a separate, there’s maybe a separation. Yeah, Mike Halewood was a motorcycle rider. Giacomo Agostini was a motorcycle rider that I would see at the racetrack where my dad taught me when I was young. So obviously they were people well known to me.

I know a ton of names because I was young in the 1960s, not so much from the 70s and 80s and onwards, except, you know, Valentino Rossi and some of the guys now. It wasn’t that I had heroes, but looking now, later, When I was in 90s, out in Senna, of [00:19:00] course. Senna, absolutely staggering talent, uh, but that was probably the driver who his focus, determination, competitiveness, that was probably the more modern person that I, I sort of thought, you know, there’s a lot.

There that you can learn from a person like that.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s step back into the timeline. Here we are in the late 80s. You’re in a Ford. So what happens next?

Andy Pilgrim: Well, the Ford was SCCA 1 year deal with the dealer out of Plano, Texas, which I have now moved from El Paso to Plano, Texas. I’ve moved into the quote unquote management world.

The dealer there wanted to run this Mustang and I was. Lucky enough that he said, Hey, you can run this Mustang. I was kind of growing around, seeing if anyone wanted a young race car driver to race anything, just like you do at that time. After that, like I said, I still had the Renault Cup car, but the Renault Cup series ended.

I sold the Renault in 86. A guy called Jeff Beitzel, the late [00:20:00] Jeff Beitzel, actually he passed away a few years ago. Jeff was the guy who said, you know, you’ve got 3, 000, I will buy you two weekends in this team that we’re putting together. It was sort of related to Pontiac because one of the guys on the team worked at GM Pontiac and that didn’t hurt.

Those two races, I bought those two races, co driver was Bill Bailey. We didn’t win, but Firehawk back then was so competitive. You’d have a hundred car fields. You’d have 50 cars in the grand sport class, massively competitive. And we ended up with like top five finishing fairly quickly. Bill wasn’t a bad driver, gentleman driver.

And I was managing to help lift us into that top 10, uh, and he wasn’t doing bad himself, but between us. Uh, we got some reasonable finishes and I enjoyed working with the team. He was a nice guy after those two races. It was, I was done. I said, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you very much. And all the rest of it.

And I, and Bill said, well, we’ll see you next week. I said, no, that was it. I’ve only got the 3000. Jeff was kind enough to bring me in and he said, okay, all right. Well, Andy, it’s been [00:21:00] great. Thanks very much. And off I went the next week. He called on the phone and said, look, you can’t afford to keep going at the rate what you pay.

I understand that. He said, Can you get yourself to the races? And I said, Yeah, sure. I think I can do that. Yeah. He said, Okay, well, I’d like you to drive mid me for the rest of the season. And that was, that was huge, because otherwise my career, you know, would have been. Well, it would have been over until I saved enough money to try again or something like that.

Yeah, but that’s what literally got me to Firestone High. We finished probably third in the championship. We won two races in 86. We won Sonoma and we won Portland. It got me noticed on a bigger stage because there were a lot of Trans Am drivers, even IndyCar drivers that would race in that series for fun.

And we loved it. I mean, when somebody like the answers showed up or the Andretti showed up, whether it was the world challenge series, the old playboy series, we loved it because our showroom stock based cars, [00:22:00] they weren’t really faster than the quick guys, but it was so cool. You know, Scott Pruitt, other people would be in there and you’re running against guys that, you know, really famous guys.

And it was, it was, it was great fun.

Crew Chief Eric: So is this then the precipice of your journey with GM, or is there something that leads up to you becoming part of that? Because I know our listeners are dying to learn more about your experience with Team Cadillac and Corvette Racing, and we’ll get there. You know, I want to kind of go through the chronology here a little bit.

Andy Pilgrim: The Firestone Firehort series, at the time, there was the Bridgestone Supercar series, there was the Firestone Firehort series. There was the World Challenge slash, you know, series as well in the early 90s, late 80s, early 90s. I was running in all three of those series, but I didn’t have a full time ride all the time after 1990, 91.

But people will call me and say, Hey, we need you for these races, or we need you for those races. And I got to do all three and they were running on showroom tires, shaved street tires, whether they were the Bridgestones, whether they were the [00:23:00] Firestones, whether they were the Goodyears, Goodyear actually had a sticky tire that they ran in, in the world challenge series.

And that was more like a race tire, but it was still, they still weren’t slicks. Early nineties. I got into Sebring and the Daytona 24 hours with Morrison Motorsports. With a car with slicks, and that was a big deal to run a Corvette with slicks. Wasn’t the very first time I was on slicks. I had a bit of sponsorship in 1988 or nine, and I did four barbershop races in a, in a formula car.

This guy came and said, you know, Hey, would you race? You know, I got four races in that. So that was my first time on slicks. But then I ran that Corvette from that Corvette and the Lotus 1994 five, I got my first opportunity when somebody who used to run Larry Schumacher who used to run the Firestone Fireholt series.

He said, Hey, would you like to run in a Porsche with me? He was running now in the IMSA series, the one that does the Daytona 12 hours of Sebring. [00:24:00] And my first time in a Porsche was with Larry Schumacher at the 12 hours of Sebring. And I think that was 1995. That was a huge thing. I mean, wow, to get in a Porsche now, it was like the other cars were showroom stock based, but the Porsche was a proper right now based on 911, of course.

But it was still a proper race car and it was, wow, it was like a huge move. I was, I remember it well, you know, that was great. And I was getting paid during this time. You actually earned money, a thousand dollars for the weekend or 1, 500 for the weekend. You could actually make money. Basic business wise, I was still had a full time job.

In 1989, I had to make a decision because I was getting rides in three different series, not consistently, but gosh, it was like 30 races a year, 30 weekends a year. The people I was working for were really good, but it was difficult. So I took my 20, 000 in savings and said, okay, I’m quitting this job for [00:25:00] 90 grand a year.

And I was earning maybe 45, 000 racing. And of course, you quit the job where you’re earning twice as much, right? With possibilities and everything. I said, okay, I’ve got 20 grand in savings. I started a little IT consulting company because that was the business I was in. Because then I could concentrate on trying to grow this racing career if there was a chance.

Luckily for me, I won’t bore you with going through all of that, but I hired four key people in the first three or four years of that company. They ran the company for me, which allowed me to try to race. I had to still sign paychecks and do all the rest of it was still all on me. They gave me the opportunity while keeping the business going and growing to a degree.

If I’d have spent more time in the business, it might’ve been a really bigger business, but the bottom line is they knew what my goal was when I hired them and they were quite happy to do that. So in 95, getting into Porsche’s 95 also was my first pro championship win. I’d been [00:26:00] second or third in other championships, but I never won a pro championship and they Speed vision cup series with Pontiac, still with Jeff Weitzel.

That was my first opportunity running with Joe Vardy. Vardy’s still around, brilliant driver, great teammate. And I managed to win that championship running with Vardy. We got split up during the year, which is why I won the championship and he didn’t. But that 95 was a big year. Getting to run in Porsche and some of the endurance races.

And also running with Vardy in that when I’m winning an actual pro championship and then 96, 7, 8, I won championships every year for those 4 years

Crew Chief Eric: and the winds kept coming. I’m going to put this in perspective for people. You’re a winner of the 12 hours of Sebring, 2 wins in the Petit Le Mans, 3 wins at the 24 hours of Rolex.

One overall and two GT class for Rolex. Yeah. And five podiums at the 24 hours of LeMans. I mean, yeah. Holy smokes. Yeah. So let’s talk very fortunate. Let’s talk about all [00:27:00] these races, especially LeMans. How about some of the more memorable moments throughout all those huge races?

Andy Pilgrim: Yeah, and again, you get an opportunity to go to Lamar.

Of course, it was a dream 1996. I was sort of on the notice board as far as Porsche at the time, I wasn’t a factory driver, but I was driving with teams that were sort of associated with the Porsche team. And I was given this opportunity to drive with the new hardware guys out of New Zealand. And they had me come in there.

So you’re at Le Mans and you’re in this GT car. The cars run about 188 miles an hour down the straightaway. Porsche has always had really good aero, slippery car. And they were, you know, not high downforce cars. They were GT cars, but they’d run well. You’d have the prototypes that you had to watch out for, of course.

So during those times, learning the Lamont track, which of course, you know, there’s no videos to look at or anything else, really. [00:28:00] You go there and you walk around a bit and it’s like, well, you’re going to go walk the track. We’ll be back next Thursday, because it’s, you know, 8. 2 miles. So you run a car on the public road portion, but there’s nothing like actually being out there with everybody and then trying to figure it out.

Where can you actually break on the straightaway? Where, you know, how quick can you actually go through the Porsche curves? And it was just. Baptism by fire. And then I’m in my first night stint in 96 and it’s pitch black going down the back straight away. You’re overdriving the lights by 80, a hundred miles an hour.

The lights are, you know, that you have lights, but they really don’t. And it was pitch black and there was an orange glow before you come up the hump to turn right into Molson corner. And I came over there as I was coming up the hill, there was a corner work in the middle on the white line with a flat.

Well, my lights were garbage and I was kind of like coming on left side of the road because I could see [00:29:00] this orange glow, but the orange glow was like. It was making the guy and the flag disappear. I couldn’t see it. I finally saw it at the last split second, moved right, went flying over the top, started to hit the brakes, of course, and there was a Porsche GT1 on the left side, completely engulfed in flames.

And it was like, good grief. I almost hit the guy. I mean, I can still see it. The corner workers are nuts. I mean, they’ll get on the track with the flags. It was just one of those things. And I’m like, this is crazy. Later on, like at three o’clock in the morning, I’m going down towards Indianapolis, long straight away with a curve and it’s a fast curve.

And then you just arc into Indy towards Indianapolis corner before the break zone. And I saw some grass in the air. I didn’t see lights ahead of me, but I saw some grass in the air and I thought, well, something must’ve happened. And there was a freaking prototype right online. Sideways really bent. I mean, [00:30:00] really bits all over and the worst corner workers, but around the corner and again, they weren’t in the road.

Thank goodness. But I had hex on job, just getting the car under control, pulling it back to the right and just missing the whole thing. And it’s like your heart is in your mouth. It’s like, what am I nuts? This is crazy. But it’s like, it was amazing. It’s amazing doing that race. I’m so glad I got the opportunities to do it, you know, six times.

Uh, but the first year was something else. It was something else. You know, those early moments stay with you, you know, crazy, crazy.

Crew Chief Eric: So you have a reputation of being probably one of the nicest people in racing, and I’m not trying to over inflate your ego, but it’s true. But during this time period, there was always this concept of rivalries.

I mean, they go back right hunt versus louder center versus promise. So did you have any rivals in racing.

Andy Pilgrim: Well, yes, of course, everybody that’s ahead of [00:31:00] you in a championship or a race is a rival per se, but there were no, there were no specific people that I got to beat that guy or anything like that. No, not really.

Friends became, many became friends. Randy Popes. And I would run against each other many times. Of course, Johnno, you know, and I, gosh, there’s loads of them. You know, the loads of guys I completely respect. And then absolutely get into the European stuff or the international stuff, or the big races you end up with guys that were in Formula One, I mean, you know, Bob Wallach, Terry Boots, and Ish, uh, max Papas, max Angeli.

These guys are Oliver Gavin. They’ve done things in Formula One, and you’re like, This guy’s Formula One driver. You compare your data to a guy who’s been in Formula One. And I mean, I was in awe. I was old when I started. I was 27 when I got into a factory team in factory Corvette. I was 40 years old when I got that opportunity to get into Corvette racing.

I think because I started so late and because it wasn’t easy to get in. I think I still have almost like a [00:32:00] childish view of this in the sense of like, these guys are working on this car. It’s not my car and I’m getting this opportunity. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Mazda Miata, somebody wants you to test around a racetrack or something.

When I get in the car, I respect the fact that guys have spent money on it. It may not be, they may not have all the money and they want me to test or set up the car or help them set up the car. And it’s a genuine privilege. It’s gratitude and it’s excitement. I love getting in different cars that I’ve never raced before.

And I think, you know, the rivalries for me, maybe ended up with friendships. Some of the guys, yeah, some of the guys don’t want to be friends with the people they race against. I respect that too. That’s fine. I don’t try and go out of my way if you don’t want to be friends. It’s fine. Our friend Lee, that’s fine.

I get it. That’s a psychological thing for some of the guys. I’ve just been always so grateful for being there. I’m generally happy most of the time when I’m in the paddock, you know?

Crew Chief Eric: I would be remiss if I didn’t ask a series of Pit Stop questions before we transition on to the [00:33:00] later part of the story.

So of all the cars you’ve raced and driven over the years, is there a favorite? Or is there a least favorite? I know it’s like picking amongst children, right? Is there really a favorite? And in that same vein, are there favorite and least favorite tracks?

Andy Pilgrim: Definitely tracks. Definitely tracks. I got an opportunity in 2017 to drive with Charlie Partman and Charles Espenlav and Joe Foster.

in some races, international races, and they ended up taking me to Bathurst and the Nürburgring. That was such a privilege to do that and go to those tracks. And also some of the other tracks in Europe, I’d been to some of the other tracks in Europe. Monza in Italy was another one that I got a chance to go to in 1999.

Those tracks and those opportunities were wonderful. But in the US, Elkhart Lake, all day long Elkhart Lake. I think every pro driver has it in their top three. If it’s not the number one for me, it’s number one for sure. But there are some great tracks in the US. Road [00:34:00] Atlanta. I love Sears Point. Laguna Seca.

Polder’s actually a great track to drive. Mid Ohio’s fun. I wish there were more overtaking points in it, but it’s still a very technical, challenging racetrack. There’s so many great tracks in the U. S., for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: So no, no favorite car? Cars. Yeah, cars.

Andy Pilgrim: No, there’s no favorite, but so many good ones. I mean, the Corvette C5R, the Corvette C6R, I drove a little bit with Ron Fellows in a C6R, which was a lot of fun.

The BMWs, the PTG cars with Bill Oberlin and Boris Sedd, having a chance to drive that car with those GT2 and the GT3 cars, versions of those was a lot of fun. Gosh, there’s so many, so many great cars. Even the old Pontiac Firestone Firehawk car was, was actually fun.

Crew Chief Eric: Outside of all the race cars, is there a sexiest car of all time?

Something that really gets you excited?

Andy Pilgrim: Mmm, I’m not going to say what I normally say, which would be a Kia Soul. Because I kind of like boxy cars and I’m a big fan of the Pontiac [00:35:00] Aztec. So the fact that most people have just turned off the broadcast. I do like funny, weird looking cars, but in all seriousness, probably the Aston Martins, the style of the Aston Martins and the style of the Ferraris is probably, they’re just beautifully designed cars, beautifully designed cars.

And I’m like, I’d love to look at those cars. I have some weird taste in street cars.

Crew Chief Eric: Not to stereotype, but I would have put money down if you, to guess, to say that you would have said the E Type Jag, but you know, whatever.

Andy Pilgrim: E Type, yeah, well, that’s well, iconic design to say the least, but I was put off somewhat that car.

I never had an opportunity to drive one, but I was told by a friend of mine who used to race historic racing. He said, they’ll basically wander all over the place at a hundred miles an hour plus because of the terrible aerodynamics from the design of the front that causes the lift. Yeah. And so it was a car that I was not at that point because everything when you’re younger, you get in it, you want to go flat out, but he, [00:36:00] uh, he basically said, do you ever get a chance to drive an e type, whether it’s a historic race or just on the streets, it’d be careful.

He said, you might be testing the top end of the car, but they’re not the most stable cars, but yeah, beautiful cars to look at.

Crew Chief Eric: Another question I’m sure people want to know, what does Andy Pilgrim daily drive?

Andy Pilgrim: Well, at the moment I’m driving a new Toyota Supra. Actually, the uh, carbon fiber edition. Yeah, I managed to get one.

I go through cars fairly quickly these days. I liked the Supra when I tested it for Automobile Motor Trend 2020 and I thought this is a great little car. When the CF came out, They were asking crazy money for it and I managed to find one in South Carolina for just a shade under M Ss r P. And I thought, oh, I’m gonna go with that one.

So that’s what I’m actually driving at the moment. And I have a Honda Ground. Yeah, Honda Grand Motorcycle, which is just so much fun on the Kentucky Back Road series. So, well, a horsepower is all I should try to handle these days. ,

Crew Chief Eric: any desire around the Nissan Z? The new one?

Andy Pilgrim: Yeah, I’ve saw a video and I, I saw, saw a drag race [00:37:00] video of the card, you know, like a.

quarter mile run. Seems like it’s certainly got some 400 horsepower, nice car, and apparently rivaling the Supra. So I’ll look forward to testing, hopefully test one at the Motorsports racetrack here in Bowling Green at some point.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, one final pit stop question. Andy, is there something still on the bucket list, a race that you haven’t been able to get to yet, or a track that you still want to drive, or even a car, a race car that you want to get behind the wheel of?

Andy Pilgrim: Having been to so many great tracks, Suzuka, Fuji, I have never raced anything in Japan, so there’s Bucket List there, and also Spa, but the team I’m with right now, I’m helping young Anthony Bartone this year, and Anthony had a wish to go to Spa to do the Fun Cup, so I would say that that in July is going to be another, hopefully another thing off the Bucket List if it all comes to pass, so I will race at Spa because that was the other track, the only other track really that I haven’t.

Race that, that I really wanted to race, you know, Monza, like I said, Bathurst, [00:38:00] you know, having gone to Bathurst, having gone to the Nürburgring race there, just being at those places that they were definite bucket list and Spa was a little bit lower down, but they’re going to get a chance. It looks like so.

Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Alright, so let’s get back to it. So as part of your time with GM, you’ve been involved for many years with the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park and known to many of us as just NCM. GTM has been there several times and I actually learned the track in a funny way. I showed up and Pat Sullivan grabs me by the shoulder and he goes, you’re getting in that car and your instructors waiting for you.

For you and I jump in, not paying any attention to look over and it was you. So you were in Pat’s borrowed ZR1 and about 20 minutes later, I’m like, okay, I got this and you had no fear in just showing me the race line and saying, here it is, have a nice day, you know, go about your business. We had a lot of fun over those weekends, but one of the things I get asked a lot by people that haven’t been to NCM, and it’s [00:39:00] one of the things that you told me is NCM is not a racetrack.

It’s a test track. So do you care to explain the difference and why that’s important to people that might be wanting to go there for the first time?

Andy Pilgrim: Yeah, I mean, it is a race track, but when I say the testing track, meaning that it’s a track to learn, it’s one of the best learning tracks I’ve ever seen.

Because it’s got every type of corner and the way that they have it usually is NCM Motorsports Park. So we kind of call it the MSP, the Motorsports Park. Because NCM is actually the National Corvette Museum. With that being said, the track at the MSP, 3. 2 mile 23 turn track, is magnificent learning track.

It’s great. They don’t have official racing there, but they do have some NASA races there, some SCCA type races there. It’s a brilliant track to learn. I mean, if you are within 500 miles of this place, it is great. And I consult here. I’ve been sort of consulting here for about four years now, very much enjoying.

So I decided to move from South Florida completely. [00:40:00] I sold my IT business in 2018. And so I’m very much enjoying my time here in Bowling Green. And so, yeah, it’s a great place. And we’ve taken like, well, the guy I’m with Anthony right now, he’s. He came 11 months ago, he’d never been on a racetrack, never been on ATV, never done go karts, never done anything.

And we just did our first SRO GT4 race last weekend. And he did very well in the sense that he kept a nose clean. He was right in the middle of the AMS and did a super job, but he learned all of the basic skills at the NCM Motorsports Park. Yeah, it’s a great, great learning journey.

Crew Chief Eric: Now, one of the things I distinctly remember about NCM that you had told me, and I will never forget, and I try to pass this on to everybody that goes there, at least for the first time, or that I’ve instructed now many times after these many years that I’ve been going there, is that you actually have to learn the track in three pieces.

And I remember you were like, and this turn is like this track, and this is like the Glen, and this is like here. And for me, I was [00:41:00] able to put that puzzle together, but you had specifically said. You need to learn this in three pieces and then stitch it together. Otherwise it doesn’t really work because the rhythm is different than a track that has natural terrain, like summit point or Watkins Glen, where it was built in to the earth versus something that was specifically designed to test the Corvettes and the Corvette race cars.

Andy Pilgrim: Yes. It’s a very challenging technical track and it’s a very long layout. And they, they managed to get 3. 2 miles out of it. And, you know, certainly the Corvette race team came at the very beginning to test there and, you know, they wanted to incorporate corners where race teams, like the Nissan team came there before they went to Lamar because they have a.

Turn one, AB, is just the same shape as the first chicane at Le Mans. And so, and the, the cars were reaching within two miles an hour on the long straightaway there, the long layout straightaway, not the regular straightaway. They got within two miles an hour of the top speed at Le Mans there. So you can test aerodynamics and things like that.

[00:42:00] So. It has been used for testing by teams that end up going to Le Mans. But yes, it’s like Elkhart Lake. Elkhart Lake is a long track and I learned that just generally because I split it. Turn one through to five, then five through to Canada Corner and then Canada Corner back. It was just the way that I learned it when I first went there in the 1980s, late 80s.

It just seems to help because you learn little bits and just put them together and it becomes more natural.

Crew Chief Eric: So having driven many different types of Corvettes at NCM MSP, what do you think about the classic front engine rear drive Corvettes versus the new mid engine C8?

Andy Pilgrim: This is a great, great question, really, because we have C7s there that kind of tow the C8s around.

The obvious thing is the Tremec transmission in the new C8. So the launch, you know, you’ve got a sub three seconds, zero to 60, which is no way can you match that with a automatic or stick shift. C7 when you’ve got such a little weight on the back wheel, you’re going to get the [00:43:00] wheel spin, uh, which is fairly typical.

The cars are fairly similar on straight away performance because the power of the C7 is a little bit less like 20 or 30 horsepower less, but the, uh, C8 weighs about a couple of hundred pounds more than the C7. But the actual driving, of course, the greenhouse in the C8 is kind of like, you know, a lot of mid engine cars.

You can see so well out the front, you get a great view of the track. And I think that’s what most people that come and try the car doing touring laps and things there. They come in their C7s or C5s or 6s and then they get in the C8. It’s like I felt like I was sitting in the road. There’s nothing in front of me and it takes them a while to get used to it and then they really, really like it.

And it’s an exotic, it’s more of an exotic shape of course. There’s a lot to be said for that design in the sense of how far you can take it. So the guys that are now modifying the C8s on the tracks, and they’re going really quick, putting sticky tires on, doing a little bit of [00:44:00] suspension work, changing the brakes, and they don’t have to do too much, but the chassis, what I’m hearing from those guys is that the chassis stays with you, and that chassis, it’ll handle more power, which we know is probably going to happen down the road, and it’ll handle the braking, it handles the stickier tires, very, very well.

And so I think you’ve got a car that’s, uh, the potential of that chassis is very, very, very good. And it drives so nicely, but they do drive different. They do drive different as you drive a front engine and mid engine race car slightly different. You have to watch your hands, speed.

Crew Chief Eric: So do you think that the C8 will benefit from a hybrid system like an NSX?

Andy Pilgrim: Yeah, I think any of the hybrids, and I’ve driven a lot of hybrids because I’ve been working with CNET cars and also with automobile for a long time. So I’ve done quite a bit of work with electric Porsche. Taycan came over there. I’ve had some opportunities to deal with a Draco 1200 horsepower for electric [00:45:00] motor.

Vehicle. I do some test driving for them. And so I’m quite familiar with the way some of the electric stuff works. Now it’s very heavy. I’ve also taken the NSX around the motor sports park as well. The weight comes with the hybrid setup, but then you’ve got that all wheel drive and there’s once they have the brain, the CPU sorted out that makes the seamless transition with the motor.

And a hybrid power. Once that gets sorted out, you can use those motors to help turn the car help really balance out the difficulties when you have a high powered two wheel drive car. And that’s what I’ve noticed. with working on traction control systems and stability control systems with the electric vehicles.

The ability to tune the computer to really help drive out of corners, help to allow more [00:46:00] aggressive. Turn ins to the corner and how it can actually help stabilize the car in various aspects. I think over the next five years, once they become more popular and common in basic higher end performance sports cars, I think it’s going to be unbelievable how quick the cars are going to be able to go around racetracks.

You’ve always going to have the extra weight, but I think the potential is going to outreach what we have now, whether that’s good or bad. I’m a technology person. I don’t mind all electric vehicles. I’m totally happy using a PDK over a manual transmission. I’m not one of these journalists that like, Oh, you got to have a stick shift or that, you know, it’s like, okay, fine.

I don’t care. It’s not just because it’s faster, but I’m fine if I don’t have them. The cars are so good, there’s so much grip in some of the street cars now, actually trying to manipulate the gear lever like going down turn four to five at Road Atlanta in a car that’s got a ton of [00:47:00] stick and downforce like a, you know, imagine an RS, a GT3 RS or the ZL1 Corvette, and you’re trying to manage, you’re not, you’re in a street seat.

You don’t have a six point harness on, you’re rattling around like a bowling ball in a jar. It’s very difficult to make quick, precise shifts. Why not have a transmission that actually makes it very much easier to manage the car or even let the car do it themselves? I like technology, I like history, I like stick shift vehicles, but I don’t get stuck.

Whatever I’ve got is good.

Crew Chief Eric: Then I guess your feelings on the alleged E Ray are quite positive then, which of the all electric Corvette.

Andy Pilgrim: Well, yeah, supposing there is such an animal. I think having driven the Draco, which is all electric with four motors, and the way that I’ve worked with an engineer to help their drive controls.

I think people are just going to be stunned if you haven’t driven a Tesla Plaid. And the zero to 60 and two flat or two one or whatever it is in [00:48:00] actuality, it’s actually uncomfortable for most people, you can get whiplash, you can cause a passenger, you don’t like the passenger, you can, you know, you can basically upset them and very easily.

I think the the performance is going to outstrip people’s ability very quickly with these electric vehicles. So much performance that race cars can’t even match in a straight line drag cause. I mean, these cars are being sold on the street and you’d have to have a full harness system parachutes. If you were going to the local drag strip for a car that does 150 miles an hour in a quarter mile and a low nine.

I don’t have a problem with it being there, but you wonder sometimes whether these cars should come with a, a bit of training rather than just sales training to know how to use the wifi. You may need to actually have someone trained in some of this stuff, because you can get to 100 miles an hour in five seconds, then you are in something extraordinarily fast.

And I don’t think the average driver [00:49:00] is going to be expecting this. Or they’ll just never use it. Any electric vehicle, any electric sports car, once they get a handle on how to use the motors and how to do the TC, any sports car, that’s all electric is going to be devastatingly fast.

Crew Chief Eric: You touched on a couple of important things here, and it’s a great segue into maybe passing on some knowledge to aspiring drivers.

And one of the things you mentioned early on is that you drove by feel and by instinct. And obviously data came later because you grew up through the digital era, through the data era of race car driving. So now do you find yourself still driving by feel? Do you use data? Is it a combination? I know people get really religious about this particular question.

You know, it’s all data or nothing. And some people are like, yeah, whatever. What are your thoughts on that?

Andy Pilgrim: I’ve been on race teams where the data was king. And the engineers would not necessarily listen to a driver in the sense that I see what I see on the [00:50:00] data, and even though you’re telling them something that might contradict that, there’s a tendency to just like, yeah, okay, but the data is telling me this.

I definitely think that as far as the data is concerned now, I utilize everything I can because one, I’m old. I mean, shoot, I’m in my mid sixties now. I’m basically running in a series, you know, GT four is a series where you’ve got some absolutely stunningly quick young guys helping Anthony. We go over data religiously and then Danton is learning from me.

So I have to be able to translate that data and sometimes I will learn like Johnny O’Connor, Johnny O’Connor, O’Connor and I drove together for five years, Johnny and I drive differently. He likes a car that is off the front. I like a car that. Is loose on the way in. If I have a car, that’s an understeering car, I don’t particularly like it.

And I don’t trust it, especially on a street course. If you’re having to drive it into a corner with an understeer to get it to go quick, [00:51:00] I don’t like that. I will prefer to let me feel the rear and I’ll steer it through the corner, you know, on the rear of the car. That’s something that you need an engineer to listen to you and give you what you want, whatever the data is.

Something like that. So data is absolutely useful for sure. When you’re trying to train someone. And I learned from Johnny, I learned from Alan McNish on data that was in the late nineties, 99, 98. And my God, how can I not learn in a prototype slash GT one Porsche from Alan McNish? I learned a tremendous amount.

One that. Alan was able to drive the GT1 Evo like he was driving a rental Cadillac, you know, going into turn 10 at Sears Point, he would lose the car twice before the apex. He would like throw it in. Oh, it wasn’t quite right. I throw it in again, all while just going to the apex now. And I thought to myself, well, I’m not going to try that this session, but I worked my way up to trusting [00:52:00] to me.

That was like, it was more than anything I’d ever driven. I hadn’t ever driven any, but you know, a GT three car at that time. And this Evo thing with 800 horsepower. Because we were running against full prototypes, so they uncorked the engine, you know, no ABS, no traction control. Learning from Alan in that car taught me that at that time, that was the most sophisticated data.

And since then, I have a tremendous, now I’m a computer programmer, right? So that’s data, I respect data anyway. But learning, I learned to learn from the data. Ron Fellows or Oliver Gavin or Max Angioletti, you know, Alan would have different ways into a corner. And I might be quicker. You’d look at the pluses and the minus on the way in, but we drove differently from what my own experience, not many pro drivers like to have a car that’s more loose.

Most of them want to drive off the front tires. I don’t know whether that why necessarily, but that’s just been my experience. You can learn from that. And sometimes you blend what’s your natural style, some corners you might. No, if you drive [00:53:00] off the front, you’re going to be quicker. And then you still in the other corners where you can just lose the back end, like faster corners.

If you can just control the back, you can maintain more speed through and you don’t have to adjust the steering because if you’re going too quick to a fast corner, you’re running off the front, you just have to wait a little bit because if you get a sustained understeer, you can’t get back. But if you can rotate it.

Another two or three degrees on the way in, you can fly out, get NOLA last weekend. I was pretty quick through the faster back section corners. And I love those types of corners, you know? Yeah. So it

Crew Chief Eric: brings you back to your days of your GTI. That’s all.

Andy Pilgrim: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Right.

Andy Pilgrim: You know, three wheels, of course, always be open, never be closed minded.

Always think you can learn something from a teammate, you can learn something from following some folks, try their line, never be closed minded about anything. I think I’ve always been open minded and tried to change and learn as I go. And I’m still learning. I’m still learning.

Crew Chief Eric: So one of the other questions that comes up is how do [00:54:00] you prep for race?

Is it just, you know, spending time at the track? You’ve been to so many tracks. It’s just experience. Is there any sort of, let’s say regimen you go through workouts, do you use simulators or anything like that? I mean, that’s like the hotness right now, right? Is everybody’s on iRacing now?

Andy Pilgrim: Yeah. My teammate Anthony is on sim.

He’s never been to most of these tracks. He’s never seen any of them. So he’s doing sim work and he gets there and it’s got him to a point when he gets there that he’s already. Got an idea where he is going. It’s not like when I first went to tracks. Nothing else. I don’t use a simulator. I do work out. I continue to do that because you have to, some of the races I do with the Ferrari, it’s a, Jen wants G T three car.

Some of those races are not, are 75 minutes. Just long enough stint that, and it doesn’t have a, it just has sort of a fan in the car. It gets very hot in there. So yes, I have to continue to work out and be prepared in that sense. Don’t do simulator work. I did before I went to the Nürburgring, I basically bought a PlayStation essentially, and learned as much as I could from [00:55:00] the Nürburgring, because out of respect for that place, I had to.

And also I learned before I went to Bathurst as well, for the same reason, just to get more of an idea. And it did help. Unless you have a 5 million simulator, the topography is not there. So that’s the biggest difference. But I think simulators are useful. Data is useful. Working out, absolutely, you should stay as fit as you possibly can.

And I still try to do that. Absolutely. I want to be as good as I can be for the whole time I’m in the car.

Crew Chief Eric: Before we move on to the last part of this episode, I want to ask you one more question. You know, we talked about how you… Looked up to drivers when you were younger, and now you find yourself in that position yourself.

There’s plenty of people out there listening to this now that are looking up to Andy Pilgrim going, he’s one of my heroes, what advice, what golden nugget would you pass on to these folks? Maybe some sort of inspiration to say, you can do it too.

Andy Pilgrim: In the sense of the money aspects, I do get a lot of people either emailing me, messaging through social media, or just talking [00:56:00] to me at the racetrack.

And they tell them just a little bit like, look, I didn’t have money. I’d started at 27. That’s the one that gets them because it’s like you got into factory cars when you’re in your forties. And it’s like, yeah, I had a factory GM contract up to 2018 when I was 61 years old. The point being that you have to have a plan.

You have to have focus. There are things in life that come up, don’t add to the trauma that will come in life anyway, do your best to stay focused, have a plan, if it’s racing related, if you don’t have a lot of money, try and pick a series, try and save some money to at least get yourself into a series where you might get good experience, any spec series, I tell people any spec series, that is going to be a good way to learn, You can’t necessarily afford to get into a pro series like the Mazda pro series now is pretty expensive.

You may get a year or two of club racing under your belt with a something like a Miata, get some results. [00:57:00] And if you feel that you are doing reasonably well, you don’t have to set the world on fire. Try and buy some races. Out of track, you know, with some teams, there’s some great teams out there. I know Shea Holbrook runs a team.

I think she’s got five or six cars and people rent cars from her. You can rent the cars in certain series or a reasonable amount of money. Give it a shot. Try at that pro level. And it lets you know if this is the way to go. And of course, if you can try and get sponsorship, there’s guys that are really good about raising money.

I never did that. And I got lucky, if you want to call it that, or, and when I got an opportunity, I didn’t make a mistake. And I ended up at this age now with this long career. Don’t let anyone say you can’t do it. Stay focused. And when you do get an opportunity in maybe a car that somebody says, yes, you’re a test.

Don’t overdrive the car. You don’t have to set the world on fire. If [00:58:00] I can tell you one thing, I know there were 10 guys in the 80s that were super quick and into the 90s and they would get. Opportunities maybe to drive a GT car or another level up from a known factory operational factory linked operation, and they would overdrive the car and they would crash the car.

And this happened over many years. I know at least 10 guys that have these opportunities. They messed them up. Don’t overdrive. If you get an opportunity, be smart, do the best you can, but don’t overdrive it. And, you know, you’ll probably get there. Enjoy it. Enjoy every time you get on a racetrack. It doesn’t matter where the, what kind of racing you do, if you love it, you’ll do it anyway.

And you’ll spend the money you can on it and you’ll do club racing forever. And that’s great. Or what’s across whatever, and that’s fine. I wanted to try and do it. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to see if I was any good. And I tried to get into a pro series lowest possible cheapest level. I could, I would advise to do the [00:59:00] same thing and work on your fitness.

work on understanding setup. I still have a beaten up moth eaten book called how to make your car handle by Fred Poon. If somebody gave me an old secondhand copy of that, and I digested that because I made myself understand car setup, whether it’s aero, whether it’s mechanical, on the cars. And learn to drive it.

And if you work on it yourself, you know, you can make a great difference to a car in lap times by understanding setups, just really work at your craft, really work at your craft, just keep a good attitude and learn from anyone that you see out there who might be better than you. And there’s plenty of friendly guys.

Anyone is welcome to come and talk to me. You know, I’m pretty much an open book. I always have been. And so if I know anything or see anything, just come by. And there’s plenty of great guys out there that would do the same thing.

Crew Chief Eric: Sage advice from one of the last great grassroots drivers. I’m going to leave it there as we move on to our final segment here.

A lot of [01:00:00] folks also don’t know that you give back to the community at large through something known as the Traffic Safety Education Foundation. We want to give you an opportunity to explain what that is to our listeners and what it’s all about and where it’s going.

Andy Pilgrim: It’s simply put in the, in the… Late eighties started the business and the bit 89 and the business took off like a single engine Cessna with a misfire dragon and alpha.

And for the first two years, it was hand to mouth, very difficult. I was literally living off the racing and not taking anything out of the business, trying to grow the business. After a couple of years, it finally cleared the trees at the end of the runway. And it wasn’t making loads of money, but at least it was paying for itself after two years, probably five years in six years.

And it was actually, we had some contracts. We had some people on billing and it was making a little profit, but it was at least stable, never a big business. Sometimes we’d have about 50, 75 people on billing. You know, you’d make a little bit of money at the end of the year. So at that point, like 1995, I lived in Fort Lauderdale area.

I actually [01:01:00] saw four kids in the car driving very, very quickly, no signal, flew off a freeway, went down to a traffic light and just kind of blew a red light on a right turn, didn’t even come to a full stop. And I just happened to be watching this thing and I thought, man, maybe traffic safety is something.

I was looking for a give back project. My mother and my godmother were very charity minded. You know, as a young kid, my mom would, we lived in a smaller town, my mom would… Go and do laundry for older people. We knew that we’re in the house. I get dragged along 8, 9, 10, 11 years old one day a weekend. I could play soccer with my friends and then the other day I didn’t like it at the time, but it stuck.

My godmother was the same way. Very charity minded business was going. Okay enough and racing was going well. It’s time to give back. So I went to the local high school and lo and behold, unbelievably. The lady at the front said, well, we, anyone to do with traffic safety, this gentleman in the auto shop down Sorrentino and I walked in the auto shop and he said, hi.

And he said, oh my God, you’re Andy Pilgrim. Unbelievable. Mid [01:02:00] 90s. The guy was a Sebring Daytona Endurance. Says, what are you doing in my shop? He gave me the opportunity to talk to his students and other teachers at the school, big school, 3, 500 students. It was literally half a mile from my house. And that’s where it started.

Traffic safety, understanding. I talked about distracted driving. I have notes from the mid nineties, actually with the term distracted driving on it. Started with talking to the high schools. Then I started talking to driver education teachers. By sort of 2010, 11, I was talking at conferences, I made a video actually with Dale Jr.

I asked Dale Jr. to help me and we made this little video was actually aimed at parents. And it was kind of early for that distracted driving early for that to 2005. And it didn’t particularly take off very well. But lo and behold at a conference, two or three of the teachers there said we use your video in our classrooms.

Thank you. And I was like, you do said, Oh yeah, it’s [01:03:00] great. That three, two, one go and focusing and grabbing the keys and all that stuff and getting your mind on driving. Oh yeah, we use it. It’s great. It’s great. I was like, Oh, cool. About 2011, 12, I made a proper video for driver education teachers. Cause I said, look, you’ve got curriculums this thick, you get six or eight hours to teach in the classroom.

So what do you do? Well, we basically, it takes about an hour to be quite honest, to teach them how to pass the test. And then we try to add things that are going to help them survive out there. I said, so if I make a video with survival stuff in it, you can add it to your classroom. You can do it. Yes.

That’s where the driving zone 2 came from. Cause the first one in 2005 was driving zone. Driving zone 2 came from that 35, 000 of those videos were requested DVDs. Requested by driver education teachers and just believe it or not, driver education teachers, 80 percent of them still want a DVD because when you’re in the classroom, the firewalls at the schools, you can’t [01:04:00] stream, even though everything on my website is streamable, they want DVD because they can’t stream it live.

It’s very difficult, the connections and everything else. So that sort of started, I’ve made five full length videos to do with traffic safety and five PSAs. They’re all on this website, I can tell you it’s www. tsef. org. Everything’s free, even shipping and handling the DVDs. It’s a, just a give back project and it’s just, I get so much wonderful feedback.

It’s great. I’ve got stuff for parents. I’ve even got stuff for parents of newborns because people with younger children, they don’t realize once you turn that child’s safety seat around a face front, that’s when your child starts picking up your driving habits and behaviors. And if you just start thinking about this when they’re 14 or 15 before they get a permit, you’re about 12 years, 13 years too late.

Everything they’ve seen you do is now cement in their head. And they are going to do the same thing. And it’s not enough to say, now, don’t drive distracted. Now don’t take some drivers. Like I’ve been watching you do it for the last 13 years. Uh, so hands free [01:05:00] phone use. Absolute. No, no. Manufacturers will tell you hands free is better safer.

No, it’s not. Absolutely not. The mind concentrating on a phone call hands free or not. It’s a major, major distraction. And so talk at conferences, I’ve spoken at Quantico, spoken at Air Force bases, Army bases, groups of younger people that want the message. And it’s, you know, machinist union, annual safety conference, 750 union safety officer from all airlines were there and of course, schools.

And to parent groups, things like that. It’s great fun.

Crew Chief Eric: And most recently, I believe you were featured on a Motor Week special as well.

Andy Pilgrim: Yes, that’s true actually. Motor Week TV came to the M S P and, uh, shot it there. And, uh, very grateful to them. And it just, it aired actually a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, we got some great feedback from that.

Lots of video requests from people and everything Streamable on the. For regular folks and students, they go onto the website and they stream things, but driver ed teachers still request DVDs. So it’s [01:06:00] like, okay, no problem. We’ll make another 10, 000 then.

Crew Chief Eric: So now we’re going to play. Where are they now? So where is Andy now?

Let’s talk about your involvement with SRO in GT3 and GT4 racing, what kind of cars you’re driving, your international campaigns, anything else that’s going on right now that people would be able to follow you on the racetrack still today.

Andy Pilgrim: Just outside of the racing environment, I’m working with CNET Cars now.

Automobile sadly went kind of out of print a couple of years ago. I’m still very good friends with Matt Morrison, who’s the editor of Motor Trend. I told the Mac that, you know, I’ve got this opportunity at CNET Cars as it is now, it used to be CNET Roadshow. And we are still testing cars at the motor sports park on track with a hot lap.

And that’s a lot of fun. So I enjoy doing that. As far as the racing goes, I got a call from Anthony’s dad 11 months ago and saying that, you know, Anthony’s interested in learning to drive on track. Lo and behold, that ended up with Anthony and I having a, you know, we’ve got used GT4 [01:07:00] MRs, good cars, not the new ones.

And so he’s been doing some different type of racing, like SCCA slash I international GT, and I’ve been doing those races with him in a separate car. Again, pulling him around the racetrack. And now, you know, now he’s chasing me sometimes at some of the tracks where he, where he knows. And so this whole year we’ll be helping him in GT four.

And now we just did our first SRO race. We hope to do another two of the SRO races before the end of the year in GT four. Uh, we may do GT for America at Nashville to give him a taste of the street course. So that’ll be fun for both of us to do that. Also the ski auto sport guys, which I’ve been running their first generation Ferrari GT3.

For the last couple of years, they are doing some SRO GT America races too. They’re again, limited schedule. They’ll do two or three SRO races. Johnny O’Connell’s also running with them, you know, which is fun. Johnny’s doing some stuff with them. So they’re basically giving old age pensioner race car drivers like us a chance to get out in the racetrack again.

So we’ll [01:08:00] do some SRO races. I think we do VIR in the Ferrari, Galecourt Lake in the Ferrari. That’s about it. I think with SRO this year with the Ferrari and we’ll do Sebring with the GT4 car and we’ll do Nashville and we’ve got quite a few other races. The whole point of this year is to give Anthony a look at a lot of different racetracks in the US as many as we can.

So we’re doing different series to get him to see the tracks. So it’s essentially a really busy year this year.

Crew Chief Eric: So I think I know the answer to this next question, which is racing is still in your future until you can’t anymore, right?

Andy Pilgrim: Yeah. And again, like I said to Tony, Anthony’s dad, I said, look, I can pull Anthony around.

And I saw he has talent, even the very first time he went on track. You know, he’s not chasing me around at that point, but I could see that he has some natural car skills and he’s very smart and he sees the way around the track. Not always perfect yet, of course, you know, I can help him. But I said to Tony, I said, [01:09:00] look, Tony, I love to race bits and pieces where I can now, and it’s fun, but this is serious.

But when Anthony gets to that point. That he’s running well enough, I will try to point him in the right direction. Then I can, you know, I can just look from the side and cheer him on and that’ll be perfectly fine. I, this is such a great cause I’ve really never been in this position to, to sort of coach someone like this.

And I don’t think many drivers do get in this position where they still give you a car to race as well. And so I feel very grateful to that. And it’s a. Pleasure to see this lad grow into this and work with him. Plus he’s a really, he’s a nice kid to be around as well.

Crew Chief Eric: We’ll be looking out for him and we’ll be rooting for him as well.

And we’ll probably be cross crossing paths at many SRO events to come in the future. So I’m looking forward to it. Yeah.

Andy Pilgrim: I look forward to seeing you, mate. Absolutely.

Crew Chief Eric: So Andy, as we wrap up any shout outs, promotions, or anything else you’d like to mention before we close out.

Andy Pilgrim: No, I just want to thank you so much for your time.

Honestly, it’s been an absolute pleasure going down sort of memory lanes.

Crew Chief Eric: Andy Pilgrim, [01:10:00] racer, educator, journalist. Andy is currently based in Bowling Green, Kentucky, along with his traffic safety education foundation. He continues his work in traffic safety, professional racing in series like SRO motorsports and consults to the national Corvette museum and NCM motorsports park.

He also writes vehicle test articles and creates video content for CNET cars. If you want to catch up with him, be sure to check out www. andypilgrim. com for all the details or follow him on social at Andy Pilgrim on Facebook and YouTube or at Andy Pilgrim the number eight. So that’s Andy Pilgrim eight on Instagram and Twitter.

And remember. Kids emulate us, so be sure to check out his Traffic Safety Education Foundation and learn how you can create the next generation of better drivers at www. tsef. org. And I have to say, Andy, I cannot thank you enough for coming on Brake Fix. What an incredible resume, what an incredible story, [01:11:00] and what an incredible all around great guy.

So thank you. Thank you very much.

Andy Pilgrim: Thank you. Thanks, mate. Thank you very much.

Crew Chief Eric: The following episode is brought to you by SRO Motorsports America and their partners at AWS, CrowdStrike, Fanatec, Pirelli, and the Skip Barber Racing School. Be sure to follow all the racing action by visiting www. sro motorsports. com Or take a shortcut to GT America dot U S and be sure to follow them on social at GT underscore America on Twitter and Instagram at SRO GT America on Facebook and catch live coverage of the races on their YouTube channel at GT world.

Crew Chief Brad: 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 Motorsports. Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for [01:12:00] future shows, you can call or text us at 202 333 4000. 630 1770 or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.

org. We’d love to hear from you.

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

For as little as 2. 50 a month, you can keep our developers, writers, editors, casters, and other volunteers fed on their strict diet of Fig Newtons, Gummy Bears, and Monster. Consider signing up for Patreon today at www. patreon. com. dot Patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. And remember without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of [01:13:00] this would be possible.

Highlights

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

  • 00:00 Meet Andy Pilgrim: A Legendary Racing Driver
  • 01:40 Early Life and Passion for Cars
  • 02:43 First Steps into Racing
  • 03:40 From Mopeds to Motorcycles
  • 05:19 Transition to Car Racing
  • 07:55 Racing in the US: The Early Years
  • 09:58 Autocross Adventures
  • 14:47 Entering Professional Racing
  • 19:24 Racing Highlights and Championships
  • 27:02 Memorable Moments at Le Mans
  • 30:57 Rivalries and Friendships in Racing
  • 33:01 Favorite Cars and Tracks
  • 34:27 Memorable Race Cars and Personal Favorites
  • 36:11 Daily Driver and Car Preferences
  • 37:16 Bucket List Tracks and Racing Aspirations
  • 38:14 Involvement with National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park
  • 42:27 Comparing Corvette Generations
  • 44:35 Future of Hybrid and Electric Sports Cars
  • 49:23 Driving by Feel vs. Data
  • 55:32 Advice for Aspiring Drivers
  • 59:59 Traffic Safety Education Foundation
  • 01:06:06 Current Racing and Future Plans
  • 01:09:47 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Bonus Content

There's more to this story!

Be sure to check out the behind the scenes for this episode, filled with extras, bloopers, and other great moments not found in the final version. Become a Break/Fix VIP today by joining our Patreon.

All of our BEHIND THE SCENES (BTS) Break/Fix episodes are raw and unedited, and expressly shared with the permission and consent of our guests.

Learn More

The Traffic Safety Education Foundation

The TSEF mission is to educate, improve driving behaviors and raise awareness of the deadly epidemic of distracted driving. We provide training programs for corporations, parents, educators and civic groups. Featuring on-demand educational videos and seminars, teenagers, parents, educators, professionals and drivers of ALL ages can benefit from learning decision-making skills essential for safe driving.

And remember, kids emulate us, so be sure to check out his Traffic Safety Education Foundation and learn how you can create the next generation of better drivers at www.tsef.org

He also writes vehicle test articles and creates video content for CNET Cars. If you want to catch up with him, be sure to check out www.andypilgrim.com for all the details or follow him on social @Andy Pilgrim on facebook and youtube, or @andypilgrim8 on instagram and twitter. 

In 1981, Andy moved to the U.S. for a programming job with GM Pontiac. His first car? A $500 Chevy Malibu Classic that lasted 45,000 miles. But it was in El Paso, Texas, where fate intervened. Spotting a Corvette autocrossing in a mall parking lot, Andy discovered SCCA and joined with his beloved Volkswagen GTI. That moment launched his American racing career.

Andy’s transition from autocross to professional racing was fueled by luck, hustle, and a well-timed encounter with Jim Pettengill of Grassroots Motorsports. Pettengill spotted Andy’s talent and pointed him toward the Renault Cup – a series where Andy could race for prize money. With a bank loan meant for furniture, Andy bought a used Renault Alliance and began racing. He won Rookie of the Year in 1984 and sold the car to fund two Firestone Firehawk races in 1986.

Those two races turned into a full season thanks to Jeff Beitzel, who saw Andy’s potential. Wins at Sonoma and Portland followed, and Andy’s reputation grew. He raced against legends like the Andrettis and Unsers in showroom stock cars, holding his own and earning respect.


Going Pro: Porsche, Pontiacs, and Podiums

In the early days, there were no coaches or telemetry. Andy learned by feel, by following faster drivers, and by asking questions. His approach was simple: let the quick guys pass, then study their lines. It was the school of hard knocks, and Andy graduated with honors.

By the mid-90s, Andy was racing Porsches at Sebring and Le Mans, winning championships in the SpeedVision Cup with Pontiac, and building a consulting business to support his racing dreams. Between 1995 and 1998, he won multiple pro championships and began racking up endurance racing wins. Let’s put it in perspective:

  • 🏆 Winner of the 12 Hours of Sebring
  • 🏁 Two-time winner of Petit Le Mans
  • 🥇 Three wins at the Rolex 24 (one overall, two GT class)
  • 🥈 Five podiums at the 24 Hours of Le Mans
Photo courtesy Richard Prince, richard@rprincephoto.com, +631-427-0460, www.rprincephoto.com. All rights reserved.

Though he didn’t idolize racers growing up, Andy later admired Ayrton Senna for his focus and determination. His own journey was shaped more by opportunity and perseverance than by emulation.

Andy Pilgrim’s story is a masterclass in chasing your passion with relentless drive. From mopeds to Le Mans, he’s lived the dream many only imagine – and he did it with humor, humility, and a whole lot of heart. Stay tuned for Part 2, where we dive into Andy’s time with Team Cadillac and Corvette Racing, and explore the legacy he’s built across decades of motorsport.

Photo courtesy Richard Prince, richard@rprincephoto.com, +631-427-0460, www.rprincephoto.com. All rights reserved.

The following content has been brought to you by SRO Motorsports America and their partners at AWS, Crowdstrike, Fanatec, Pirelli, and the Skip Barber Racing School.