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Hydration Is Horsepower: How to Beat the Track Day Hangover

September 7, 2021

Track days are a celebration of speed, skill, and adrenaline—but they can also leave you feeling wrecked. That sluggish, foggy, post-race feeling? It’s not just fatigue. It’s often dehydration. And if you’ve ever dragged yourself through day two of a race weekend, you know exactly what we mean.

In this episode of the Break/Fix podcast, we sat down with holistic health and nutrition consultant Ken Newbill of Newbill of Health to unpack the science – and the strategy – behind proper hydration for motorsports athletes. Because yes, drivers are athletes. And hydration is performance.

Ken starts by busting a myth: hydration isn’t just about drinking water. It’s about cellular electricity. True hydration requires minerals – electrolytes like sodium, potassium, and magnesium – that help your cells fire and function. Without them, water is just wet.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Historically, humans drank from rivers and springs, where water was naturally infused with minerals. Today’s bottled water? Often stripped of those essentials. That’s why Ken recommends adding a squeeze of lemon or lime and a pinch of Celtic sea salt to every 16 ounces of water. It’s a simple way to mimic nature and supercharge your hydration.

Spotlight

Notes

Dehydration is bad!
Should we just drink water?
Are sports drinks, like Gatorade or Powerade good for you?
Is “the urine test” still a viable way to know if you’ve had enough to drink?
Sometimes people confuse being hungry with being thirsty, how do you tell the difference?
What types or combinations of proteins, fats, carbs are ideal for long and stressful days?
Eating at the track is often limited, some folks like to camp, others fast food, sometimes there is an option for a cookout. But if you really want to stay in top shape, what kind of menu would you recommend, when the ability to cook is limited?
What can you do to cut the temptation to snack?

SHOUTOUTS to GTM members for inspiring this episode with their articles:

NUTRITION – As written by Andrew B – “Just Eat It” – Proper Nutrition at the Track!
HYDRATION – As written by Sam H – “Stay Thirsty My Friends” – Proper Hydration at the Track!

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Break Fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autos sphere, from wrench, turners, and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Petrolhead 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.

We, as automotive enthusiasts spend a lot of time researching and modifying our cars in pursuit of better performance. However, we often tend to overlook our own physical performance and take for granted what it takes to keep performing at a high level. All day at a racetrack.

Crew Chief Eric: Many of us have felt the track day hangover, which for some can feel like an actual hangover, headaches, fatigue, lack of motivation, those are all signs of dehydration.

Usually day two of a track weekend, you can see folks in the paddock moving slower, [00:01:00] not nearly as energized, nor as motivated. Just kind of feeling a little bit off

Crew Chief Brad: and with us tonight to discuss proper hydration and nutrition techniques is Ken Newbill Holistic health and nutrition consultant from Newbill of Health.

Welcome to the show, Ken.

Ken Newbill: Good evening. It’s nice to see you both. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Crew Chief Brad: And as always, I’m your host, Brad. And I’m Eric. So let’s roll.

Crew Chief Eric: So let me set the stage here for our audience. For those of you that are loyal listeners and fans of the GT Motorsports webpage, you will have noticed in the past we’ve written some articles about this.

Big shout out to two of our members, Sam and Andrew, who put together articles about health and hydration with respect to this particular topic. Ken is a professional in this field, and we wanted to get the inside scoop on some expanded techniques on avoiding the track day hangover, prepping for a track weekend, recovering from these hot out in the sun with no shade motorsports types of events.

So Ken, why don’t we kick this conversation off [00:02:00] with hydration first. You know, as they used to joke on Star Trek, humans are bags of mostly water. And that being said, we do need water. Or liquid in order to survive. Right? But being properly hydrated, it’s very complex, right? It’s all about regulating your body temperature, delivering nutrients, you know, keeping organs functioning amongst other things.

What really is that high watermark, pun intended, on a normal day-to-day basis of intake versus something more strenuous, like a track event. You know, you hear these numbers? Yeah. Six four ounces a day. A gallon a day. Yeah. What are we supposed to be shooting for?

Ken Newbill: I’m gonna drop some knowledge on you guys today.

That might be a little shocking. If anybody listening to this right now went out to actually hit a actual research site to define how much water a human should drink a day, you will not find a conclusive study period. It’s never existed because we all have one major metric of hydration that gets us to drink water.

It’s called thirst. I [00:03:00] get asked this question by all my clients all the time, like, Hey, you know, I heard I should be drinking half my body weight and and water. Is that true? For some people it is because of their output. Let’s transition a little bit. Not so much for the amount, but let’s talk about what hydration is.

When we understand what hydration is versus watering the body. Hydration and watering the body are two different things, so water is just an aqueous solution. There’s nothing in it Technically, it’s H2O. That’s pure water. As soon as there’s something else in that water, it’s no longer water. From a molecular standpoint, we have to be honest about this almost most people don’t want to give that credence.

So if you were to pick up like an average bottle of water, there’s typically more than water in it. Mm-hmm. So there might be sodium bicarbonate or something like that to help raise the pH balance of that water or potassium citrate or something like that. You’ll probably find some level of additive to a lot of the so-called plain waters out there that’s no longer technically H2O from a chemistry [00:04:00] standpoint, period.

Point blank. Anybody can try to argue that, but they’d be wrong. Let’s think a little primally. As humans, why did we drink water and where did we source our water from? Before the invention of cities and tap water purification plants and all this wazoo stuff, we got it from the creek or the river or the lake.

All that water that H2O was not pure H2O. It was H2O with all types of other things in it that humans naturally knew they needed. One of the most important parts about drinking any spring water from the source. What are you getting? You’re getting the minerals and all the additives that that water has traversed through to get to you or wherever that source of water is that you’re gonna take in.

So hydration is about producing electricity at a cellular level. That’s hydration. I tend to remember it that way by thinking of hydroelectricity. We are hydroelectricity makers, so we take in this aqueous solution that we just [00:05:00] label as water in hopes thereof from a primal standpoint, that we’re gonna achieve the hydration levels from the electrolytes naturally existing in that water because humans.

Cannot make one mineral. We don’t make any. We make vitamins, but we don’t make any minerals. And minerals actually drive the spark of life at the cellular level. When they’re in charge of so many functions in the body. It’d probably make your head spin. And I would say typically in most medicinal journals, and even people that are talking a lot on different podcasts about health, they have no depth of understanding around this piece here.

That is kind of a root foundational wellness strategy. So when we think about that hydration, I don’t care about how much water you drink, you could get hydration from fruit, probably one of the best sources of aqueous solutions that can hydrate you because. The tree is already filtered out all the junk.

That’s true. You’re getting good stuff [00:06:00] in a fruit. So if you’re taking in good organic fruits, these are way more hydrating than the average, crappy cup of water that people are typically drinking because there’s nothing in the water. It’s just wet.

Crew Chief Eric: So that’s amazing. Right. Kind of earth shattering, their mind blowing for a lot of people that probably haven’t broken it down to that level.

So you are hitting us with some serious knowledge here. Let’s hold on the alternatives to water for a moment and let’s discuss dehydration for just a moment. We all know it’s bad. It’s like a curse word. So dehydration. A lot of people don’t know when they are dehydrated and you mentioned something you know you need to drink when you’re thirsty, and I’ve always heard that when you know that you’re thirsty, it’s already too late.

Right? Right. You’re already probably dehydrated at that point. Is drinking in that moment. Enough. How long does it typically take to recover from when you are thirsty? How much do you need to overcome and rebalance? Like how do you know these things? How do you know when it’s too late? Right? There’s so [00:07:00] many conditions there.

A lot of folks will say, you should also pre hydrate.

Ken Newbill: Yeah, let’s take it from soup to nuts, you know? So what’s a good pre hydration strategy? And ultimately that means that you just don’t allow yourself to get dehydrated. So that’s the ultimate strategy is just what are you doing to protect yourself from going into a state of dehydration?

Are you resting enough? That’s part of dehydration. What type of activity are you doing, especially for athletes like drivers that are gonna be in these hot conditions anytime of the year. Once you get it behind that machine, depending on what you’re driving, it’s gonna be hot, it’s gonna be intense, there’s gonna be a lot of adrenaline, there’s a lot of hormones produced during that activity.

So you want to preload and all that really means is. You wanna make sure you’re compensating for what you’re about to do. So if you’ve been like just, you know, going about your week, you know, happy go lucky, but you really haven’t focused on, I’m racing in four days. Okay. And I think that’s a really good point to start pulling your shit [00:08:00] together, if you will.

About getting serious about loading your body and preparing for a very athletic event that’s going to exhaust you with that hydration strategy comes this less sugar. Number one, sugar dehydrates the hell outta you. So you’ve instantly gotta start moving away from sugar, processed sugars and simple carbohydrates.

Your chips and cakes and all the stuff that we know we’re not supposed to be eating anyway, but we like ’em, right? So we eat ’em sometimes. Well, this is a good time to just be like, okay, I’m gonna go really lean going into this race so that I’m not pulling anything. So one of the things that we don’t think about nutritionally, even when it comes to hydration, is whatever you eating is either giving to you or taking away from you.

There’s an exchange. It’s not just an input because it requires resources to process what you’re putting in your body during this next four days. You wanna put in things that are just giving and giving and giving to you as much as possible and not. Taking a lot from you. So [00:09:00] lighter foods four days in are a good idea.

Just lighter foods, uh, conserve energy. Um, when you conserve energy, you also conserve your hydration ’cause all of this stuff requires juices and things to make happen. Like you can think about your digestive track itself. We’ve got all this water in the system as we’re digesting food. So the heavier your food is, the heavier the digestive load is as well, which is gonna require more water to do so.

And then by the time it makes it to your rectum, you’re hopeful that much of it can be absorbed back. Into your body if you can. Just depends on the state of your wellness and your health. Let’s preload with just basic stuff. Get on your fruits and vegetables hard because they all have water in them.

They’re easier to digest. And I would think like the easier, digestible foods that aren’t super high in fiber, like right now at summertime, your squashes, your cucumbers and tomato salads. Avocado’s cool because it’s got fat there and it’s also still like 85% water even though it doesn’t look [00:10:00] like it. And this way you don’t have to really get into like this box.

If you will, of picking out specific foods and fruits. Just go eat a ton of fruits and vegetables leading into this opportunity so that your digestive system will probably be nice and flowy. Things will be moving out as they should. So by the time you make it there, you’re not constipated, you’re not dehydrated, things are working as they should.

So you’ve got the best opportunity possible. And then moving into race day, you need to prepare a pack, make a hydration pack. So you need to have some good drinks on deck that are gonna support you throughout the event. And you wanna start drinking those types of drinks four days out. So you need to start drinking your mineral beverages or your electrolyte drinks, you know, your coconut waters, you know, mixing it up, getting some diversity in there so you’re not bored and just, you know, some plain water is fine too.

But a simple thing that anybody listening could do is for every 16 ounces of water that you’re drinking, one squeeze of a full lemon or lime. [00:11:00] Into that water, get you some vitamin C in there, and grab a pinch of Celtic sea salt. This is the gray sea salt that you can get at your local grocer. It’s wet. So it doesn’t do very well in a grinder, but it’s got a little gray color to it because it’s not processed, which means it has over 92 trace minerals in it.

Crew Chief Eric: Interesting.

Ken Newbill: Just doing that alone on a regular basis. Here’s something that most people find, they don’t need to drink as much water,

Crew Chief Eric: and that’s because the salt allows you to absorb more quickly Right into your system. Exactly.

Ken Newbill: And it’s gonna serve your systems. Even though we’re talking a lot about hydration, you know, you mentioned like that after effect.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep.

Ken Newbill: Right? The day after, you’re like beat down because you’re not just dehydrated. You’ve also went through a very significant emotional event, and so you have tapped out all your hormones. You have had some serious highs and some serious lows, so you have pumped out a crap ton of cortisol. Your adrenal glands are tired, and that’s part of [00:12:00] your hormonal discourse, and that hangover that you’re feeling is.

I need more salt and potassium because both of those nutrients drive how adrenal glands work and perform.

Crew Chief Eric: So I heard bananas and salt in there. That’s what I heard.

Ken Newbill: Well, let’s think of some other cool potassium foods, right? One of my favorites potatoes. This is why potatoes are an actual survival food.

There’s not a whole lot of foods on the planet that that’s all you could eat and thrive. Think Holocaust. Why? Because it’s full of nutrients and it has a crap ton of potassium, which is one of the hardest nutrients for Americans to get the right amount. If you look at recommended daily allowance, they’re gonna tell you really poor lie of 99 milligrams a day that’s doing nothing but keeping you above the grave.

Barely. The number’s more like 4,900 to 5,000.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow.

Ken Newbill: And so when I run labs on my clients and I’m looking at their cellular. Mineral levels, potassium’s always one of the bottom [00:13:00] next to magnesium. Magnesium is often not included in electrolyte drinks, so I encourage you to use one that includes magnesium because it is gonna make you feel like a million bucks.

Okay? You’re gonna feel more refreshed, you’re gonna feel even more relaxed. Your muscle twitches are going to dissipate between the combination of magnesium, sodium, and potassium. Having those concentrated in a in a drink is bar none amazing, and you won’t feel the drag. If you think about getting halfway through a race and you start to feel the dip energy’s coming, you’re trying to get the focus back.

Your focus is not as sharp if you’re constantly trickling in magnesium, sodium, and potassium while you’re driving your edge. Is gonna be so much better. Your attention span, your reaction time is gonna be way cleaner because you’re not depleting, you’re just constantly keeping the tank full, keeping those electrolytes and at the cellular level and that’s what we want.

You get that fire of a TP.

Crew Chief Eric: So what’s funny about that is, you [00:14:00] know, I think some of our audience, the closest they get to ingesting magnesium is leaking vintage Porsche transmissions. But, uh, is there a natural way to get magnesium into your system outside of some of these sports drinks that might have it in it?

Ken Newbill: Yeah, I mean there’s absolutely plenty of foods that you can get with magnesium, but nobody wants to eat them. Your highest magnesium foods are gonna be green, leafy vegetables, dark green, leafy vegetables, especially like charred collards, kale, kale, kale’s, getting a bad wrap these days. Oh my God. I did a post on my Facebook page yesterday asking like, what’s the, um, health food that you hate the most, you despise the most?

And Kale was catching a bad rap. I didn’t know we had gotten there.

Crew Chief Eric: And you know what’s funny about that? I grew up, you know, in a, in a European household and, and for us, bitter leafy greens are just part of the culture. You’re eating things like radiko and stuff like that. And, and even. I mean, in the old country, they’re eating like dandelion and stuff, and you’re just like, man, but you get, you get used to it.

After a while you’re like, you know it’s not in kale. I’m [00:15:00] like, man, this isn’t that. This is pretty good.

Ken Newbill: Yeah. I remember the, I remember the first time I was deployed to Germany, I went out to eat on the local market for the first time, and I got the salad with my food and I was like, who picked these weeds and put these on my plate?

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s circle back a little bit. We talked about dehydration, but the signals, like we said, what you

Ken Newbill: feel. Oh yeah. Yeah. So the first thing you’re gonna feel is probably you might get, if you’re lucky, you’ll get the precursor dry mouth. You might skip dry mouth and start getting to the low dull headache, which is typically bad.

Things are about to happen. If you’re pretty depleted on magnesium, for example, you may be prone to a migraine at that point. I’m sure that happens sometimes on the track where guys are like, Jesus, my head is banging. I can’t make it

Crew Chief Eric: stop. And then people are taking the military cocktail, right? A couple of Advil and some monster and then that’s, you know, it’s supposed to rectify the problem, right?

Ken Newbill: Trying to get it right. He’s like, whatever it takes to get out of pain, to get refreshed, you just may feel [00:16:00] your response. Time is a big part of dehydration that creeps up on people. Your response time is just not as sharp, so don’t think it’s not happening. It’s really happening. You’re really not turning as fast as you were before.

You’re really not coming out of the turns as well as you were before. You gotta truly take that into account because the ego just wants to go. It just wants to perform and ignore those things when you’re trying to win a race. You know, I rode bikes for a very long time. I loved to race bikes and I’ve been under that helmet plenty of times about to blackout and I’m like, I’m stupid.

Okay. I mean it’s, I guess it’s part of the fun, right? We just want to, we we’re high on that adrenaline and that adrenaline just comes at a cost crotchety fingers. If you feel your hands start tightening up or swelling, that’s a sign of dehydration as well. Ankles, swelling, knees swelling. You might even start to get puffy in the face.

And so this is the attempt of the body to try to retain water because it knows that you are dehydrating. [00:17:00] And so you probably really need to get some more potassium into the body if you start swelling right away. So slam a banana, eat a avocado, grab a drink like we said before, but the headache thing is really bad.

Now there’s a next stage. You know, in the military you do not wanna get to heat exhaustion or heat stroke, and this is where things get really deadly. And that’s when we stop perspiring. So if you stop sweating and it’s hot, that ain’t normal and you need to, you need to back down and you need to figure things out because you might not make it through this, you might die.

I have had heat exhaustion very close to heat stroke before when I was in the military, and it’s not fun at all, and you’ll never wanna go through it again if you survive it. So if you’ve been pretty wet and all of a sudden your bone dry, but the environment hasn’t changed and you’re still pushing, that’s a clear indicator that you better start drinking.

And at this point, we want to get wet. All right? Just get wet right away because you’ve ran outta juice. You [00:18:00] have ran out, your sprinkler system is all out of resources. You’re gonna start overheating ’cause you’re gonna get hot. Right? And that’s one thing to just figure out is how hot am I am. I like, so when you first get on the track, and I know as the day goes long, track’s gonna get hotter typically, you know, during the summer months.

So it’s gonna get hotter throughout the day. But you’ve gotta kind of gauge yourself when you’re in it, if you’re able to get in and out of the vehicle or just when you first get in for that ride. All right? How comfortable I am I in my gear? ’cause some guys wear full body suits racing, so that can tax a lot from you.

Is that thing soaked with all your sweat wet comes out, needs to go back in. So you kind of have to think about that. And so for guys that are experienced drivers, they may notice this when they drive and they’re like, dude, I probably sweat at least a half a gallon in that suit through the course of a race.

And some people more like, I’m a really heavy sweater that’ll give you a good indication of how to preload. I’ve got experience with this. I know how much I typically perspire in a race of this statute. [00:19:00] Let me make sure as I’m building up to this. And there’s nothing wrong with doing a little force hydration as well.

For sports, taking in a gallon of water and really making your body kind of saturate itself 48 hours prior to going in. Not such a bad idea. Just make sure you have a place to pee. ’cause you’re probably gonna need to pee a lot on race day. So I don’t know how you guys handle that in the car, but I’m sure you have very inventive ways to get it done.

Crew Chief Eric: And you know, that’s a great segue. This is probably the third time you’ve brought it up and I wanted to thank you the first time you said it, which is the understanding that motor sport is a sport. It is an athletic sport. A lot of people don’t consider it that, oh, you’re just driving around the circle.

It’s like driving on the beltway. I’m like, not really. Cabin temperatures are 150 degrees. You’re under pressure. You’re wearing full Nomex. You know, you’re wearing a Hans device and just pushing you down, which actually a lot of people don’t realize, doesn’t allow you to perspire properly because we perspire up and this thing is carbon [00:20:00] fiber keeping you down, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And, and again, thank you for that. But what it does lead me to is something you mentioned, you know, the peeing situation. Yes. So there’s a couple of. I guess maybe wives tales or myths that I wanna address, right? The quote unquote, the fabled urine test, right? Looking at the color of your pea determines how dehydrated myd you are.

Oh my gosh, right? And the other one has to do with the temperature of the fluid that you ingest. Is it better to drink something warm because you absorb it more quickly or because you drink it cold? Your body actually generates more heat, more energy to consume a cold beverage because now you have to generate heat in your body to process it.

All these kinds of things you hear about all the time. So what is fact and what is crap?

Ken Newbill: Well, first we’ll start with the first one, with the color of your urine. Let’s start with comparing us to your dog. So, have you ever seen your dog pee clear?

Crew Chief Eric: Not

Ken Newbill: quite. You’re never gonna see a dog pee clear unless it’s got diabetes.

Okay, so their P has always got some level of [00:21:00] yellow in it because that means your kidneys are filtering appropriately for the volume of things coming into your body. Measuring color of our urine, I wouldn’t say is a great indicator always of how hydrated you are. What it could mean is you’ve drank a lot, okay?

So you drank a lot, but guess what? I remember doing forced hydration drills in pre ranger school where we would have to line up in a line. It was some bit of hazing, if you will. So we all ate way too much food and then they line us up and make us drink bottles of hot sauce and well, we gotta drink all the water.

So they show up in like ten five gallon cans of water that we all need to drink. We only have two canteens, 16 ounces each, right? Top those off, and then we gotta drink the rest. I’ve seen plenty of guys drink a crapton of water and still have heat injuries. Why is just water going in? Okay? There’s nothing else serving them.

In fact. Too much water and peeing clear means you’re probably having renal leakage of other nutrients. You’re probably leaking out [00:22:00] potassium, leaking out sodium and leaking out magnesium because you’re putting all this force on the body to hydrate to get to this clear state. So no, I don’t see that as a indication of proper hydration.

Proper hydration should be a skin test.

Crew Chief Eric: How elastic your skin is.

Ken Newbill: Yeah, that’s where all the fluids are going, right? They’re going to the skin and the muscles and to the tissue. So that’s a way better indicator. Of how hydrated you are. Now, if you are dehydrated, your skin’s gonna go up here and stay up here.

It’ll be like, Hey, what? You know it’s gonna hang out until it goes down. You’ll find people like this on a track. Try this test. I guarantee you, you’ll be like, dude, you’re about to die. You need to drink some water. Your skin’s sticking up like you’re 95 years old. Like, what’s up with that? You’re 35. Let’s just dismiss that color thing.

Now, if you’re peeing butter, yeah, you could probably lay off the alcohol or the beer or whatever’s. Got you peeing butter. All right?[00:23:00]

I mean if, if you’re

Crew Chief Eric: peeing butter, please consult the doctor. I mean, immediately

Ken Newbill: there’s something else going on. But no, you want your urine to have some color in it. Otherwise, you’re probably overtaxing your urinary system. Interesting. You’re just putting too much in and not enough other good things. To allow the hydration to actually happen.

And so the water’s just gonna move through you cause you to pee a lot and you don’t feel any better. You’re just peeing, but you’re like, but I don’t feel better. The only thing that’s gonna make you feel better is a little sugar, a little salt and other minerals. That’s what ignites you and gets you to actually

Crew Chief Eric: feel

Ken Newbill: refreshed.

Crew Chief Eric: See, you know what I just heard him say? The answer is Jagermeister. That’s the answer.

Crew Chief Brad: And monster. You can’t forget the monster.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true. Monster and Jager is where it’s at. But getting back to the other two kind of myths, you guys know

Ken Newbill: caffeine? No good. Caffeine, no good.

Crew Chief Eric: I know we’ll talk about that in a minute, but let’s dispel the other two myths a little bit here about the temperature of the liquid.

You know, nobody wants to drink hot coffee on a hot day or you know, is [00:24:00] ice cold water better for you than let’s say room temperature water?

Ken Newbill: Yeah. And so I went through these things for years back and forth and so there’s always like the perfect primer way of doing things. And then there’s also like. But I’m a modern human man.

I grew up drinking cold beverages and I like them. I like a cold beverage. It does help you reduce your body temperature. So a cold beverage on a hot day, I hear you, the naysayers out there, but, but, but it’s gonna cause your body to burn more energy to, to bring it into the body. Do you know how much, probably negligible is my guess, right?

It’s nothing. It’s water. Your body. Can change the temperature of something pretty quick because it’s already hot. Okay? So I think we can get very overly sensitive and really focus on minute things that just don’t really matter. Point of the matter is does it make you feel good? Does it make you feel refreshed?

Did it lower your body temperature? I’m drinking a cold beverage. You can go drink that lukewarm crap if you want to, but on a hot summer day, I’m from Texas, man, we’re drinking cold water right now. It’s a hundred every day. Yes. Can we get break down and get [00:25:00] anal about it and go, yep, you might burn more energy.

But if I have the energy to burn, who cares? Exactly. I’ve got some extra fat on my belly I can use to burn. What do I care about? Right? I wanna feel refreshed and feel alert and feel safe getting behind that machine. I’m about to, to drive one 50 or whatever. Know that I’m gonna come out alive. And if the lukewarm water restricts you from drinking, then that’s not your choice.

Because it’s not what we can do. It’s about what we will do that matters the most. Even if you turn someone onto an electro like beverage and they hate it and they won’t drink it, what good is that gonna do for them? You gotta find another way for them to make, to take care of themselves.

Crew Chief Eric: Ken, that’s another great segue.

So into our next section where I need to first quote Derek Zoolander. Because moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty. But we need to go beyond water, right? We need to, we need to understand these other drinks, additives, whatever that are out there, that will help.

Supplement what we’re losing, like you’re saying as we’re burning it throughout [00:26:00] the day, we need to replenish, we need to replenish the potassium, the magnesium, the salt, all those kinds of things. So if you look back over time, Gatorade was where it’s at, calling ’em out. And the original Gatorade is not the Gatorade of today, just like the original mobile one is very different than the mobile one that you buy off the shelf today.

The original Gatorade was developed. It was very much like a saline solution, right? It was. It’s very different than it is now. Now there’s, you know, 37 colors that you can’t find in nature that it exists in. Blue color is so special

Ken Newbill: to me.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh God. But, but you know, now there’s competitors. You got vitamin water, body armor, you’ve got even things from like Cliff where it’s like cube additives and gel packs and Nemo, I think you can squeeze in the water, but you were saying, you know, ad lemon and lime, is it one of those, it’s whatever works for you and resonates with your body, or is there really.

Maybe a top five or top three that people should be gravitating towards in highly strenuous, high heat types of athletic events like we’re dealing with.

Ken Newbill: I would say first, you know, like you [00:27:00] mentioned before, just look for the beverages that are still trying to live on their legacy and have been bought out by huge soda companies like Gatorade.

You know, when we were growing up, nobody wanted to drink Gatorade. Nobody want that garbage. It was horrible. Why? Because it was a true. Electrolyte beverage. Back then, it didn’t have any sugar in it at all. It only had, I

Crew Chief Eric: remember

Ken Newbill: minerals and potassium and a little bit of chalky, really bad flavoring that they hadn’t quite figured out yet.

We only had two flavors back then. Remember green and orange? That’s right. And orange was really bad. It was like a, like a basket

Crew Chief Eric: version

Ken Newbill: of tang.

Crew Chief Eric: Now we got the Crayola crayon box of colors. Yeah. Now you can cook

Ken Newbill: any anything you want. Just remember when you’re trying to hydrate, you don’t wanna bring in a bunch of sugar.

Here’s the thing though, I think there’s a balance to strike a little bit of sugar on a really hot day in a beverage. Or in one of your beverages throughout the day could be a bit of a lift. But if every beverage you’re picking up is a strong high fructose corn [00:28:00] syrup based beverage, you’re putting yourself in a further deficit.

You’re not helping yourself at all. You might as well be drinking Jim Beam or something. ’cause you’re just gonna keep dehydrating yourself more. And also it takes 54 molecules of magnesium to digest one molecule of sugar. So just remember, everything comes at a cost. How much is this sweet worth to me? If I just wanna feel good and do my job today and show up and kick ass on the track?

It’s business. It’s the day to show up and kick ass, go do your work, have your work beverage with you. That’s not, you know, a fufu beverage. It’s not the sweetest and tastes the best, but it makes you feel great and it works and it gets the job done and watch out. Also, for things that include a lot of these goos and stuff, they have mato dextrin in them as like one of the leading ingredients.

And that’s a genetically modified piece of crap corn derivative that you don’t really want in your body. Number one. Number two, it’s going to dehydrate. It’s not gonna help you. It’s a quasi sugar. All bets are off for those [00:29:00] types of substances. Push those off to the side. So look for these types of ingredients.

Maltodextrin, all the various 50 different names of sugar that’s out there. Dextrose, sucralose, sucrose. ’cause they’ll try to hide it in many different ways. Oh, this electrolyte drink is sugar free. Just gonna poison you with something else. Asperine, you gotta deal with that diet sweetener. It’ll makes your body kind of respond in the similar manners.

If it was real sugar anyway,

Crew Chief Eric: you know, there was a craze there for like half a second for aloe water, right? You’re like, oh god,

Ken Newbill: why?

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t understand why anybody wants to suck on an aloe plant, but you know, hey, I, I got it when I got a burn. I’m gonna put it on my hands, but I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna make tea out of it.

But the new hotness seems to be coconut water. It seems to be everywhere. Oh yeah. I have a hard time with it because of whatever they mix it with. A lot of times, to your point, you talk about chalky, the old days of Gatorade, stuff like that. Some of that coconut water, it’s just. It’s so dense, right? It’s almost sappy and it’s like it’s hard to drink in some [00:30:00] ways.

Now, I’ve personally found I’m gonna name drop here. Body armor, which is made with coconut water, is actually a pretty good balance. I haven’t read the label like you have. What’s the story? What’s the scoop with coconut water? Why?

Ken Newbill: Well, coconut water is just one of the most balanced, electrolyte beverages on the earth that nature built, and it’s just that plain and simple.

It’s balanced. It’s got so many things that you need to refresh. High potassium, a little bit of sodium, some magnesium. It’s a good, refreshing beverage. I don’t like ’em. I’ll be straight up with you. I don’t like drinking coconut water. I will drink it though if I need it, and if that’s all that’s around that I can get my hands on, I’m gonna drink that.

But the aloe stuff, dude, aloe is great for your gut. That’s what aloe is really good for is soothing, healing astringent. It’s antiseptic, antibacterial, antimicrobial, all that good stuff. It’s good to help your gut out. It doesn’t have super strength for hydration, you know, it’s really more of a, a soothing opportunity for digestion and things of that nature.

And of course topically, [00:31:00] you know, to heal from things. You know, going back to your initial point. In terms of, you know, what’s the deal with all these different types of drinks? Powerade, Gatorade, those are the same thing, right? Just slide them to the side. Coke versus Pepsi. Ignore. Just ignore. Ignore all the energy drinks.

I know that’s hard to say for a lot of people. Yeah, don’t shoot me. Okay? Ignore all the energy drinks ’cause they’re gonna dehydrate the heck out of you. Because not only do they have plenty of sugar types of substances in them, they also have hormonal mis regulators in them. You will not be as calm as you wanna be under pressure.

You’re gonna be a little more jacked up. Also, your blood’s probably gonna be a little thinner because some of them things have thermogenics in them, so they kind of just make you sweat, which you don’t wanna do. You don’t wanna sweat extra. Okay, so remember I’m not trying to sweat extra. I just wanna sweat normal.

So I’m trying to hold on to my fluid so I can stay hydrated as long as possible. A drink that I would recommend, cocoa one, which is one of the coconut water, pretty decent. Trust me, they’re not all equal. Most of the coconut waters, they don’t have a lot of [00:32:00] coconut water in them. So I’ve done a lot of research on this and with a couple supplement companies to help me verify some things and so I can make the best recommendations for my client as well.

So you can actually find really cool, dehydrated coconut powders that are really good. They’ve been blended in such a way where they have lots of hydration potential and feel good stuff in there that doesn’t mis regulate you or dehydrate you, but just support you. It might have a little bit of mushrooms in there.

Mushrooms can make you feel good. Not psychedelic, but they’ll make you feel good. I mean, psychedelic ones are nice too, but that’s another story. But a

Crew Chief Eric: little fungus among us, right? So it’s all

Ken Newbill: right. But what I encourage people to do, so when I go golf, especially this time of year, I make a mineral beverage for myself.

And so I’ll take some type of fruit powder, like some kind of bioflavonoid powder. It has like mixed berries and stuff like that, just to give it some flavor, toss that in my bottle, and then I will put in some liquid electrolytes. Which anyone can find trace minerals. If that’s all you’re starting with, just go grab [00:33:00] a bottle of ionic trace minerals.

Buy trace elements you can find on Amazon. Super easy. Doesn’t taste like much, not super bitter, so you can pour that in there. Can find you a magnesium liquid supplement to put in there. That’s also along the same lines and maybe a little bit of potassium. Just get that thing to taste like something for yourself.

Add a little salt to it if it needs some salt. And it should be just a little salty, not a lot, just a little salty. Like, mm, I can taste something there, but it doesn’t offend you. It shouldn’t be offensive. This way you can just pour that over some ice. ’cause I’m drinking cold beverages on a hot day, the lukewarm police can come arrest me.

I, I don’t care. So I’m gonna, I’ll pour that over ice one batch at a time and sip on that and feel super fresh the entire round. I’ll go get to the 18th hole and I feel like no big deal. I feel completely legit. Like I could go another round. And that’s what you want to feel like when you end the race.

You want to end the race. Strong. You don’t wanna get across the line and be like, dude, [00:34:00] I am done. You’re still gonna have that adrenaline crash after that you gotta cope with, outside of that, you should be feeling pretty well to do. Another one that I’ll throw out there is even doing this with mineral water.

So like I’m a big Topo Chico mineral water fan, super seltzer. So it’s super refreshing, man. It’s probably got the most carbonation out of any of the mineral waters on the market, better than Perrier. So if you, if you like the bubbles, like I’m a Bubbles guy, Topo Chico, it’s gonna blow your face off. And I mix all my minerals in, in the Topo Chico.

I just mix it together and I chuck it down instead of using plain water. I’ll use that ’cause Topo Chico has the most, uh, minerals per liter. Then just about any distributed mineral water here in the us. It’s got more than Perrier and LaCroix. It’s got more than both of those for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: And what I also heard there is Ken is a big fan of Don Ho.

He likes the tiny bubbles in his wine. I like bubbles. I like the bubbles.

Crew Chief Brad: Well, yeah. One thing I’ve, I’ve always heard, not specifically about like the track hangover [00:35:00] and like being dehydrated and stuff, just a normal alcohol hangover cure is Pedialyte. You know, people talk about Pedialyte all the time.

Ken Newbill: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, I do. What is your, what are your thoughts on that? I’ve done it every once in a while. I’ve actually have some in the fridge for if I’m really dehydrated after mowing the lawn on a really hot day or something like that. For sure. Uh, I, I’ve got that in conjunction with the evil Gatorade. Um, but you know, what are your thoughts on that?

Ken Newbill: Pedialyte is rock solid. It’s just most people cannot drink it.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s like, it’s definitely an acquired taste

Ken Newbill: man. So I’ll share this little story with you guys. The very first day of Ranger indoctrination, I got really sick. I got a migraine, and I was in the back of the class. Like we had just got our butt smoked, like we were extremely exhausted.

It’s very first day, so they’re, they’re hazing the hell out of us having a party, if you will. And so I’m in the back and a medic comes up to me and he goes, drink this for the next hour. I am committed to drinking that [00:36:00] and throwing it back up over and, oh. So if you can’t hold it down, Pia at night’s not for you, just let it go.

Find something else or try to dilute it at least. ’cause it’s a little slimy. It’s got a little thickness to it that, that texture.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, it’s greasy.

Ken Newbill: It’s weird deal, but it’s a legit man. Pedia light’s legit. It’s been legit forever. It’s just disgusting.

Crew Chief Eric: So you brought up a really good point about dilution, right?

That’s another thing that you hear all the time, and I saw it raising my girls as well. You know, if you’re gonna give ’em juice or if you’re gonna give ’em something, you know, you dilute it with water. I’ve heard the same thing about, you know, Gatorade and whatnot is for every one of those, if you drink one, you need to drink X amount of water to dilute it or mix the two.

So is that true as well?

Ken Newbill: Yeah, because you’re taking in so much sugar, you probably need to drink two to one to be honest, to really kind of compensate for how much the sugar’s gonna take from you. It’s not a low dose, like when you pick up the bottle and you see how many grams it really is. ’cause it like a typical bottle is like, yeah, 16 [00:37:00] ouncer, 16 ounces.

It’s two servings. But they don’t tell you, they don’t really like make it easy for you to figure that out. ’cause you’re like, oh, this is one, you know, I’m gonna drink this at one time. Right. Yeah. But you know, you 30, 40 grams of sugar. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And 400

Ken Newbill: calories later, right? Yeah. You’re like, dude, what’s up? And so the divorce part is you get the quick energy and then you get the crash.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep, exactly. That also brings up another great question. Drinks and fluids to avoid, obviously top of mind would be dark sodas, sodas in general, anything maybe with caffeine and probably alcohol. Is there anything else on that list?

Ken Newbill: Think about food too. Foods that cause you to want to drink a lot when you eat are typically dehydrating foods.

So avoid fried foods for those days. Maybe leading into the race day, right? Because they’re gonna suck a lot out of you. Fried foods suck a lot of water out of you. That’s why you get so thirsty when you’re eating them. Some other things to avoid drinking. So we’ve got the alcohol, we’ve got the coffee, we’ve got the energy drinks.

And that’s a hard one for a lot of people. ’cause [00:38:00] most people are freaking hooked. Like they’re just hooked on them. But those you really do want to try to cut loose from. I would probably not be doing a lot of dairy this time of year because dairy’s technically like a food, right? So if you’re drinking a lot of milk, you probably don’t wanna do that going into race day.

That’s just,

Crew Chief Eric: so I gotta ask this question and I know it’s, I know it’s not your world, but I gotta ask it because we just passed the Indy 500 not long ago, and it’s tradition that at the end of the race, he’s handed like a quart of milk. He or she, the winner is supposed to drink it. And I’m like. To me that would be like taking in paint.

Like I, why would you wanna drink milk

Ken Newbill: on a hot

Crew Chief Eric: day?

Ken Newbill: There’s no way. There’s no way I’d want any of that. No, I, I’ll pass. You know, milk is a liquid meal, especially if it’s whole milk. We used to do challenges where we see who could drink a whole gallon of milk and hold it down for an hour. Oh, you know what you get when you try to do that sick?

You get cottage cheese, that’s what you get. You’re gonna make cottage cheese.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh man. [00:39:00] So since we’re talking about that, you brought up a really good point. Oftentimes people confuse being hungry with being thirsty. Oh yes. So how do you really tell the difference? And if you are feeling hungry. Are there foods that can be used to offset dehydration?

For example, I’m thinking like melons, like watermelon, cantaloupe, right? That are high in water content.

Ken Newbill: Well, first was how do you tell the difference between when you’re hungry and thirsty? So you test, you drink first and you drink a copious amount. So you take in somewhere between eight and 16 ounces or a little more and just slowly drink it and then walk away from the situation.

Go and do something. Because nine times outta 10, especially like in the morning times, most people really aren’t hungry. They’re dehydrated ’cause they haven’t drank anything in nine hours. That’s normally what you need is just some, just some water to get going. Just drink something down and give it a half an hour.

If in a half an hour your stomach’s rumbling for food, it’s probably time to eat. If you feel like you need food, you feel like you’re ready for food, go ahead and eat. Think about it. I mean, [00:40:00] like a watermelon is one of the most underrated super foods on the planet. I say it all the time, and it’s because it’s got such a huge delivery system, it has tons of water to deliver nutrients to you easily.

The fiber of the watermelon is very soft and malleable. So melon is the fastest moving food for humans to digest, period. That means that’s your fastest hydration opportunity in a food. Don’t skip this. Honeydew, watermelon, Cantal, LOEs, all your muskmelon varieties. Dig in because they’re gonna serve you well.

Like everybody feels better after they eat that stuff pretty quickly because it’s only like 20 minutes that watermelon’s moving through. You also wanna make sure that when you are eating melons, that you’re not combining it with other fruits or vegetables ’cause of its fast nature. It has special enzymes that allow it to digest pretty rapidly in the body.

It’s barbecue season, right? So what do we do? We’re cooking ribs and briskets and whatnot, and then what do we have ’em for? Dessert, watermelon. Mm-hmm. A lot of times. And so a [00:41:00] lot of people have. Gut problems at the end of barbecues because meats very slow digesting food. Watermelon’s a very fast digesting food and so when it can’t get out right, because it’s other stuff is in the way, it ferments in the gut.

And so then what happens? You get all the bro, the gas, the dissension, maybe a little bit of heartburn or acid reflux, and then when you finally do go, it’s a hot mess in the bathroom because the watermelon is forcing the issue. So some things may not really digest that well. ’cause watermelon’s in the environment, and I know it sounds crazy, but it sure is true,

Crew Chief Eric: but it’s always an opportunity to make a joke.

So watermelon is nature’s draino. I get it.

Ken Newbill: It definitely is. Like you said, melons. Next citrus. Get all your citrus in. Lemon, lime, grapefruit. Those are my top three. Lemon, lime. But not or,

Crew Chief Eric: but not oranges.

Ken Newbill: Not oranges necessarily. They’re not. They’re my number four and it’s because of the sugar content that they have.

But the other three grapefruits, it’s getting [00:42:00] close to that. But the orange is the sweetest. Who doesn’t love a fresh squeeze? Orange juice. Everybody loves that ’cause it tastes freaking awesome ’cause it’s sweet as it all get out. Plenty of lime. Plenty of lemon. Mix it with some grapefruit. Now you got a really nice blend.

It’ll lift you. You’ll feel supported. You get some vitamin C and you, everybody needs vitamin C. And just the hydration of those fruits are amazing. So even if you’re just eating them, that’s easy to create. For anyone. To have a quick grab bag of fruits that are already broken down. Next would be like pears.

Like pears right now are really good and they’re juicy. It’s a really wet. Fruit. But what’s really cool about pear is the skin, because of the fiber of the pear, it slows down the digestion of it a little bit because the fiber’s there. So you don’t get that huge sugar spike from that fruit, but you’re still getting all that juice and flesh that’s nice and watery, so that’ll support you as well.

So those will be probably my top ones. The other ones are a bit more exotic, where you start getting into like Kiwi star fruit, dragon fruits because of their high water content. Totally [00:43:00] cool. But they’re just clumsy and fumbly foods to kind of get right. I did do this for a month where I ate Kiwis with the skin on, Ooh, ooh.

That’s like eight sandpaper was not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. It didn’t prickle my tongue, which I was concerned about. The skin is so tangy. Oh my gosh, it’s super tangy.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, it’s funny on that list, I didn’t hear any stone fruits, and I didn’t hear any berries, probably because they’re extremely high in sugar content.

Ken Newbill: Well, the berries just don’t have enough. They’re not gonna give you enough bang for your buck unless you’re cool. With eating like a half a gallon of blueberries,

Crew Chief Eric: and that ends poorly too for most people. Yeah.

Ken Newbill: Site. You’re gonna be like a, you’re gonna be like a bear. You’re gonna be like, dude, what? What’s happening back there?

You’re gonna be looking for,

Crew Chief Eric: looking for a bunny

Ken Newbill: to square yourself

Crew Chief Eric: away. Before we switch gears, one thing you kind of made me remember again, you know, growing up, especially going overseas and whatnot, in Italy especially, they used to sell something over the counter that they would call. [00:44:00] Acha, which I didn’t realize until way later was just them saying the acronym for vitamins A, c and E and basically it was a bottle of lemon, carrot and orange In a, yeah, in a particular proportion.

And I always, every time I would try it, I was like, this stuff is amazing. What I wanted to get to here is we often overlook carrots as a source of those extra nutrients that we might be missing,

Ken Newbill: or vegetable juices in general. I mean, V eights are pretty cool. It’s an old school beverage. There’s nothing but pretty good stuff in those things if that’s what you can get your hands on.

If you’re into juicing, dude, there’s nothing wrong with juicing some stuff up for a track day if you’re cool with it. And I mean like some fruit juice, some vegetable juice blends. You’re just not doing all sugar stuff because that’s just gonna give you a quick push and you’ll probably get some good out of it in the beginning.

But without a good hydration plan, that could derail you or it could give you the runs if you’re not prepared, if you’re, so, don’t try too many new things on track day. [00:45:00] So you want to experiment like when you’re practicing. So if you’re gonna go practice this weekend, treat it like a race prep day. You gotta practice the stuff and see how your body responds to things.

You know, some people, when they start hydrating appropriately, they poop better. So most Americans don’t poop very well. So once they start really getting their hydration down appropriately, all of a sudden they’re like, dude, I don’t know how I’m gonna make it through the race. I gotta poop like four or five times.

It’s ’cause your body has to acclimate to it. Yeah, you have to get used to it. Things will then balance out and your bowel movements will become predictable again. But the last thing you wanna do is to try all this new things, especially messed around with minerals and you get too many and your body can’t absorb ’em yet.

You’re gonna have the poops and it ain’t gonna be pretty. If you can’t absorb magnesium very well, or even salts, you know, I have some clients that I start off on salts that very low dose salts, and it gives them the runs right away because they’re so out of balance. Their body’s been so out of balance for so long.

The body is not, it has to go [00:46:00] really super mega low dose and gradually work them up over time.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m thinking Virgin Bloody Mary’s at the next Sunday morning, uh, free race.

Ken Newbill: But, you know, I drink, I drink V eight. Celery juice is a, is, you know, celery juice is not just great. For healing. It’s a great hydrator too because it has natural salts in it, uh, which is also cool if you can stomach celery juice or maybe celery juice with some apple juice in it.

I was gonna say, you’d have to cut that with something fierce. Uh, your and your watery fruits, your watery vegetables, cucumbers, and summer squash and all of those can been eaten. Raw celery, nothing but water and fiber. These are some of the things I would keep around just like quick snacks ’cause I don’t want to eat a meal.

On race day until it’s done.

Crew Chief Eric: Right. I, I’m with you on that. And actually, that’s a great segue into our next segment, talking about nutrition, the eating side of this conversation. Right? ’cause that has a lot to do with it. And I tell you what, the hotter it gets and the more amped up I am, the day, [00:47:00] the less I want to eat.

I just want to drink and drink and drink and drink, but you show me food and I’m like, I’m revolted by it. Right? It’s, it’s like the last thing on my mind. Now at the end of the day, I’ve been chilling in a paddock for a couple hours. I’m like. All right. Where, where’s the, where’s the T-bone? That’s right.

You know what I mean? I’m like, I’m ready to chow down right at that point. But that brings up the, the big question of what types of combinations of proteins, fats, carbs are ideal for an athletic event like this or other athletic events like this. Um, is carbo loading ahead of time the right strategy?

’cause you hear that a lot gotta carve up before I do this. Yeah. You know, big thing, I’m going for a triathlon or whatever, but Motorsport is right there with it. So what’s the strategy here?

Ken Newbill: You know, there’s been a lot of back and forth about carb loading for years, and I think it really depends on the application that you’re trying to use it for most people.

Tend to have used carb loading mainly for a glycogen effect, for muscle building. That’s where we have the most scientific based arguments [00:48:00] about getting those glycogen stores back up to help support your muscle growth and maintenance. But in terms of like endurance. Things of that level. There’s only so much glycogen that you’re gonna hold onto in your liver, and then the body’s either going to, depending on what type of metabolizer you are, is either gonna take the rest and convert it to fat, or it’s just gonna poop it out.

There’s no need to put yourself in a situation where you think I need to be eating bowls of pasta and potatoes and cake. Most people carb load as an excuse to eat crap. Just to be very frank. Like, I’m carb loading whole cake baby. Okay dude, chill out. No man, your diabetes loading. That’s what you’re doing.

You’re diabetes loading. We just have to be honest and understand that food is just information, okay? It’s just information. You don’t have to have a whole bag of potatoes on your back inside of you to go into an athletic event. ’cause your body’s only gonna store so much of this stuff. So eat normal, eat clean, whole foods.

Could [00:49:00] you have some carbs? Yes, you can have some carbs. I’m not telling you not to eat carbohydrates. You’re gonna wanna make sure that that liver. It’s full. You wanna get a good glycogen store going on so that you don’t feel lightheaded. ’cause you’re probably, like we say, you we’re not going to eat a lot on race day.

So at some point you’re gonna deplete, you’re gonna tap out by working and moving around and sweating all damn day. Eventually you’re glycogen stores are gonna go, whoop, I’m out. That’s why I mentioned earlier, it’s not such a bad idea to have some beverages along the day or just maybe grabbing a piece of fruit here and there.

It’s got, it’s got some sugar in it, but it’s good sugar, right? It’s got mainly fructose. And what’s good about fructose is it doesn’t cause that much of an insulin spike because. Fructose does not require insulin to carry it to the cell. Like glucose does Anything with glucose requires insulin as its partner to get it into the cell.

So that’s creates a higher spike when we’re thinking about, oh, do I wanna have a piece of toast or a piece of fruit go with the fruit? [00:50:00]

Crew Chief Eric: And that brings up another question, right? And so we all know eating at the track is often extremely limited. Yeah. We don’t all have full kitchens and, you know, and all that kind of thing at our disposal, a lot of folks like to camp.

People will go for fast food or whatever’s available at the concession stand or, you know, whatever they’re cooking that day. Sometimes there’s a cookout at the end of the day, somebody’s barbecue and somebody’s grilling. To your point, if you really wanna stay in top shape, especially on a multi-day weekend, you know, a lot of folks are there three days, sometimes longer, depending on what’s going on.

Oh yeah. What do you, what’s the menu? What’s, what’s your recommendation for how you should be eating through the course of those couple of days?

Ken Newbill: Especially ’cause if you’re ra, you know, racing multiple days at a time, definitely want to get satiating meals, but also stuff that can really lift you and support you.

You’re gonna want some carbs after your race ’cause you’re gonna be depleted from a lot of sugars. I would be more concerned about after a race carving up, if you will, and I’m really not carving up necessarily. I’ll probably have a meal, something like a ton of vegetables [00:51:00] and maybe a baked potato or two as a meal.

Like that’s my meal. It’s two baked potatoes and some broccoli and carrots or whatever. Steamed or boiled. However, I could get ’em done at the track. Super simple. I might just get some steamers tossed those in a, in a boil of pot water, throw ’em in a microwave, there’s, if there’s one around and go that it’s hot,

Crew Chief Eric: whatever.

Yeah,

Ken Newbill: yeah. Whatever we got. And go that route. And that’s a very satisfying meal, believe it or not, because most of us have been raised in America to eat steak and potato. But the problem with that is it’s really too heavy and it doesn’t do that well. Digesting in the gut. It, it put. Gut. So we miss out on a lot of the nutrients that we should be getting from that meal.

We just don’t get ’em, we just poop ’em out. Definitely fibrous foods, you wanna get something that’s plenty of vegetables. Whatever your, your take is on vegetables. If you can get in like some dark leafy greens, easy on the track is like a, one of those pre-packaged bags of mixed salads or spinach. Have way more than just like Romaine and Iceberg in them.

You are [00:52:00] like, what are these funny looking leaves? Get that bag. The bag with the funny looking leaves. Grab a bag of that and eat some of that and cover a ranch dressing. Right. Whatever you gotta do, get it in whatever

Crew Chief Brad: you

Ken Newbill: like. I don’t see no spinach in here. It’s just a bowl of white stuff. Is this a soup?

Crew Chief Brad: So one thing you didn’t really touch on, because we’ve talked about carbs and we’ve talked about fiber and everything, but we don’t really talk about protein.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I was gonna say, do you even protein broth. Our protein.

Ken Newbill: Our protein. Our protein. Wow. You know, protein is everywhere. It’s in everything in America, we are overly protein sensitive.

To think that we can’t find protein in, in regular food. And something that a lot of people don’t realize is your protein is recycled. Every day, like 75%. That’s kind of kind of like, what if you just step back and think about the paradigm that we’ve been preached to forever, especially like in muscle building magazines and things like that.

Hey, if you don’t eat right after you work out, like your muscles are [00:53:00] gonna deflate and you’re gonna die. That’s how they try to make you feel. But let’s get back to the brass tack of understanding. We’re eating protein to get to some very key nutrients. The top nutrients that we’re looking for are essential amino acids.

That’s what we need the most from meat outside of, especially muscle meat because muscle meat doesn’t have like, you know, in liver where we get 700% of our daily allowance of vitamin A, which everybody’s pretty short on because nobody likes to eat organ meat anymore. But that’s why organ meat is so freaking healthy.

’cause it has a crap ton of vitamins in it, like 400% B12. And we’re talking about a little piece of liver, not like a big piece, a little piece like an ounce or two has that much in it.

Crew Chief Eric: I thought it came in that little bottle of seven 11 for like two bucks.

Ken Newbill: You’re going to eat meat. This is America, so you’re going to end up eating some meat.

I’m not worried about that, but I would say if I was in a race mode, I would not eat meat. Would you eat eggs instead? I would eat eggs. ’cause I don’t consider eggs. Meat. Yeah. They’re just an animal protein, but they [00:54:00] digest way differently. In fact, the assimilation of egg protein is the highest. Amount of assimilation any animal protein can make to the human body.

48%, whatever the value is of the protein, we can actually absorb and assimilate 48% of that protein. Wow steak, 30% at best. Any other animal plush 30% at best. So when you get this big steak and it’s like, oh, there’s a hundred grams of protein in here, your body can only absorb both. 30 of them.

Crew Chief Eric: Interesting.

Ken Newbill: So what about poultry and fish?

I consider animal flesh. Animal flesh. Right. Okay. Okay. ’cause it all requires the same enzymes To break it down, I have a little bit of concern with some fish. I think some fish just naturally break down easier. Than others, but the assimilation of the amino acids at the cellular level is still very much the same.

It’s about 30 to 33% maximum. That’s if you’re a very good digester. So if you’re the average American and you don’t digest food very well, because, well, 80% of the people are undiagnosed [00:55:00] hypothyroid. If you’re hypothyroid, that means everything in your body has slowed down to include your potential to produce good, strong amounts of hydrochloric acids in your stomach, to break those fats and proteins down, to start there, and then to secrete the right amount of bile out of your liver and your gallbladder, and then getting the enzymes from your pancreas, all of that stuff into the small intestine to break and emulsify those fats down to where they’re actually absorbable.

From a cellular perspective, a lot of times we’re not really thinking about this, and this is why I wouldn’t if on race day and I had two race days in a row, I would eat no animal protein outside of eggs. Because I want easy, absorbable, fast moving foods that I can get the most nutrients out of while I’m trying to perform at my highest peak.

I could be eating plenty of meat up until race week, and then probably I’ll start thinning it out. If I eat meat two times a day, normally I probably drop down to one by when. Four days out from a race, drop down to one, one nice steak a day or whatever, burger chicken, whoever’s animal you want to eat [00:56:00] that day, eat that animal.

But as we roll into race day, it’s game on. I’m gonna go light and frequent. I’m gonna eat as frequent as I can where I can stomach it and light as I can so I can really just stay highly hydrated and getting plenty of nutrients. So it’s just about nutrient density, not fullness.

Crew Chief Eric: If you come and visit us in our paddock, it’s tradition that you will see across the table.

Three things. A case of monster, a five pound bag of Haribo gummy bears and boxes of fig Newtons. I mean, it’s whether it gets eaten or not, it will always be there. This is tradition. It brings up a good question about snacking, because people sometimes eat because they confuse it with being thirsty, as we mentioned, but they also eat because sometimes they’re bored, right?

And it’s something to do. And so how do you cut the temptation to snack? And generally snacks are either super high in salt, right? Something like a chip or crisp if you’re from across the pond or a high sugar item, like a candy bar or whatever. You hungry, grab a [00:57:00] Snickers. You know, you, you’ve heard the commercials.

We’ve talked about melon, fruits and things like that to offset. But what’s a good kind of healthy snack? Is it the trail mix or is that still in the wrong category? You know, what else is on that list?

Ken Newbill: But as far as like some good snacks, like what to bring with you, trail mix without candy, legit get the m and ms out of there.

Maybe a little bit of dehydrated fruit, like some raisins or dates. Dates are really cool ’cause they’re super sweet, like candy. If you can tolerate them, I happen to love them. You could have one date and you’d probably pretty satisfied ’cause the sugar content is super high. So you have a date, chug some water and like go.

And the best part is the way the fiber and the skin of the date is amazing and it just doesn’t give you that hard glycemic hit. It’s a slow digesting sugar, so it’s really cool. So it doesn’t make you feel bad. And you can have a few of those throughout the day and they’ll just lift your day up, you know?

So we’re looking for stuff like that, just plain nuts. Nuts are great. Trail mix is great because it’s fatty. [00:58:00] That’s what you’re looking for. Out of a nut snack is the fat that’s going to solve your hunger. The fat cuts off the hunger, so you get some fat in. You get about a anywhere from a handful or two, which will be anywhere from a quarter cup per handful for most men.

And so you get a half a cup of nuts. You’re probably looking at somewhere between 275 to 350 calories, probably somewhere around 50 plus grams of fat, and so that will satiate you as long as you’re willing to eat that and then hydrate thereafter, probably do you fine. So then there’s also cool bars. To buy out there.

Laura bars have been out forever. And what are they, dates and something else. Just get the plain stuff that just got the fruit in it. Don’t fool yourself and go, I’m gonna go get the Healthy Bar that’s got chocolate chips in it. That’s a candy bar, bro. We crossed the line from Health Bar to Candy Bar and we just have to be real about that.

’cause a lot of us want to placate like we’re not, and we just play childless game.

Crew Chief Eric: I, I don’t disagree. I, I think you’re right about that, but there’s also some other things when you start to talk about those [00:59:00] bars and some of those alternatives. Million of ’em out there. Right. And it’s hard to choose when you’re in a big box store.

It’s like suddenly you just go into like, you know, analysis paralysis. So I’ve actually found that I really enjoy the Larry and Lenny’s products. Right. Uhhuh, they make the, the cookies or whatever. Yeah. And you know, I remember you telling me about

Ken Newbill: those years ago.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re awesome. Right. And my wife hates ’em.

She’s like, they taste like pea protein and they taste like this, and you can, she’s real sensitive to that stuff. And you know, I’m sensitive to anything with peanut powder in it. Like, and, and that was, I was gonna say about the nuts too. Obviously nuts are an alternative for folks that can have them. And there’s probably some nuts that are better than others.

Obviously, honey roasted peanuts is not the option. Yeah. Versus maybe a hazelnut, an almond, a cashew, something that could be roasted or boiled or whatever, know. You know, the simpler the ingredients. Exactly.

Ken Newbill: Better

Crew Chief Eric: what’s hidden in a lot of these bars. And it’s not found in the Larry and Lenny stuff because if you look at the ingredients, they’re actually pretty simple, pretty straightforward.

But in a lot of these healthy bars is soy. Yes. [01:00:00] And so there’s kind of two schools of camp on soy. It’s either super awesome for you or it’s like the devil. So I wanted to address this as well. Talk about the controversy of soy. You know, should we be doing this? And then there’s obviously the, you know, the, the male side of this where it’s like, it’s gonna feminize me by eating soy because it has estrogen in it.

Right? And so suddenly we’re all gonna have, what is it mans ears like on like on Seinfeld, right? So let’s talk about that a little bit.

Ken Newbill: Well, soy has a lot of history. It’s just not the same in this country as it is in the original country, which is designed, which is the case for a lot of different foods of culture that end up.

On our soil here in the us, we us, it, us, we, us blessed it to death and it like will bring you death literally. So yes, processed soy is not your friend. It’s not anyone’s friend, it’s not even a woman’s friend, to be frank. So when we’re looking at these soy byproduct preservative items, and if you live around farms like I [01:01:00] do, I live around farms, so I get to see soy fuels all the time.

Okay. I see soy, corn, and wheat fields regularly. I truly have a very strong understanding of how these things are farmed, and it’s not just the estrogen that you have to cope with from processed soy because eating processed soy is very different. Than eating at a Mame. At a Mame is a whole food bean.

Does it still have some estrogen characteristics? Yep. Does it have more things in it to counterbalance it as a whole? Food? Yeah, it does. Your body can recognize it and do better things with it. No one’s gonna grow, man boobs from eating at a Mame. But if you’re eating lots of processed foods and all the processed foods such as your bars and your chips, freezer meals and things like that, ravioli.

Soy is everywhere. It’s in so many things, you don’t even realize how much you’re really taking in. So I’m such a nut about it. I source soy free chocolate. I don’t want any soy leftin in my chocolate. I just avoid soy as much as possible because [01:02:00] I’m an aging man. I wanna look and feel like a man for as long as possible.

Okay. And if

Crew Chief Eric: you guys could see Ken, you would swear he’s at his early thirties,

Ken Newbill: you know, so I’m not all against soy. I’m an application of soy. Yeah. Whole food tolerable. Not a high priority food because it’s still a genetically engineered crop. I don’t like how soy is grown in the us. Because it’s sprayed with glyphosate every time they harvest it.

So they prep the fuels with glyphosate, they grow a genetically modified bean that can tolerate that environment, and then before they harvest it, they kill the crop with glyphosate. So it’s easier to harvest those toxins, make it into those processed foods, along with the soy. You can’t separate ’em, unfortunately.

So we’re getting not only that estrogenic opportunity. But we’re getting a chelation opportunity. And what that mean is we are pulling more stuff out of your body because the presence of glyphosate in that food [01:03:00] is in your body. Glyphosate is a natural chelator. It pulls minerals out of things, so it’s gonna pull it out of you and you’re trying to keep your stuff.

But yes, soy meat. The only time I recommend soy to clients is typically women, and it’s in a fermented form supplement form to help them get their hormones balanced appropriately. So if they are estrogen deficient, which happens to women as they age, they can become estrogen deficient. We supplement with the right estrogen opportunity and soy is good for that.

And maybe even heard of things like, uh, nato, that pasty looking really gross, horrible paste block that Asians typically eat. Don’t eat it in the US because if you read the ingredients on that thing, you won’t eat that. I hope you won’t ’cause it’s not the same, not to from Japan.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, if it looks like something, a wombat pooped out, I’m definitely not gonna eat it.

Ken Newbill: No, I’m not doing that. I don’t mess with temp either temp soy or tofu. Those are not meant for me, not this human. No, thank you.

Crew Chief Brad: We talked about energy and the type of energy you get from foods and things like [01:04:00] that, but what about things you can do physically for yourself? Sleep. Uh, I mean obviously everybody needs sleep.

Uh, like the stretching and like some, some certain like small exercises you can do with body weight exercises in the paddock to help kind of get your juices flowing and things like that kind of warmups and stuff like that. Did you want talk on that a little bit?

Ken Newbill: Do you even Yeah, absolutely. I, I would love to man, I would love to talk about moving the body.

You know, really getting your energy to fire right, requires a, a holistic approach so we can drink all the right things, eat all the right things. That’s all great. But if we don’t fire this system, move the body, things become stagnated. So there’s a lymphatic system that runs all throughout the body, which is my biggest focus about movement because that system does not have a pump.

It does not have a heart to pump it like your veins and arteries do to move blood. And there is lymphatic fluid in that. All the tubes, they’re kind of mirror everywhere. You have veins and arteries, you’ve got lymphatic. In fact, there’s probably a little bit more lymphatic. It’s all over your brain everywhere.

[01:05:00] When you get sick, you’ve got glands out here that swell. You see a lot of people that get cancers, they get these bumps under their arms. Those are lymph nodes or glands. What that system’s for, it’s your sewer system for your cells. This is where your cells poop and pee into. Physical movement is the only thing that pumps that system to move all that sludge down to your kidney where it gets filtered and then recycled.

This is when we’re talking about kidneys earlier in that yellow. Versus clear peeing going on. That’s from the blood. But some of that is also from the lymphatic system of the gunk that it’s filtering out needs to leave as well. Some exercises that we can do right head to toe deep stretching. Don’t make it complicated.

I don’t have to turn, you know, race stars into, into yogis. I’m not saying there’s anything against yoga. It can be complicated, but everybody knows. Just a simple head to toe. Give yourself some time to move. What hurts? Move and manipulate with hearts. You, we all got something that ain’t aligned, right?

You’ve got the shoulder, we’ve got the lower back. The way that you sit in the car, you probably know what you’re gonna [01:06:00] feel like, what’s gonna feel like trash after you get out of that cage, okay? And you’re like, geez, my left hand is always jacked up. Work on it. Bring out the roller, bring out the phone roller, and do some of that rolling work on those areas that you just tend to have that injury memory.

Work on those. Get them moving, get them flexible. It’s possible. Get them warmed up before you get in the cage, before you get in the car. And like I said, I’m doing head. Turning your head’s gotta be on a swivel in a vehicle, so you need to make sure that your neck ain’t all jacked up. You’ve done a lot of good stretches with your neck, just some basic jumping jacks.

It really gets everything. You can’t beat the old jumping jack. It’s just funny as hell to do now that we got burpees and shit, right? You got burpees that nobody wants to do, but the old jumping jack is pure awesome because you don’t have to do it in high impact. You can just barely move your leg. So you don’t have to be a thin guy or an athletic person to do it.

And if you want to get things pumping even better, especially if you’re a little heavier than you want [01:07:00] to be, fit down on the floor and get up by any means necessary safely. And that will get your blood pumping. And I’ll also let you know where you hurt. You’re like, shit, my ankle’s fucked up. I didn’t know That hurts.

My knee’s not right. Oh, this, this hip over here is a little outta whack. My neck, my

Crew Chief Brad: back. My neck and my back. Yeah. You

Ken Newbill: know what’s up. So you know you can work on those areas. I like to do a little pushups. I’m a pushup guy, so I’ll just get down, knock out 25 50 pushups. Just get pumped real quick, shake it out.

But really for me, it’s more about stretching because it’s really loosening up the body before you go into a really tight and constrained place where you’re not gonna have that opportunity for a long period of time is probably gonna be the best win for you. But you’ll protect your energy by opening up.

Because when you’re in the car, everything is closed. We’ve got the straps on, they’re kind of holding us up, but we’re kind of hunched over. And so when we get into that seat position, that seat position, I call close, you’re closing [01:08:00] energy off. Anytime you see someone walking like that, they’re never energetic people.

They’re not the hyper people, they’re the slow, methodical, uh huh ho-hum kind of people. So open everything up, get a nice deep stretch, get some deep breathing exercises. That’s amazing. You can practice breathing while you’re driving. You’ll be a zen master if you can con, you got good breathing exercise while you’re driving, you’re gonna think way clearer than the average driver.

’cause you’re just taking in way more oxygen to your brain. And most people, when they’re under duress, they stop breathing short breaths so they’re not getting as clear thoughts. So if you can train yourself to do nice deep belly breathing while you drive, man, you’re gonna have an advantage. You’re gonna have an advantage over the other players out there.

But keep it simple. Nice deep stretching. Just a little bit of calisthenics because I don’t know, you might be in your suits. I don’t, I don’t know what the pit is like, or where your area is like all the time, but you know, I might not wanna make a big scene, but just some very basic calisthenics, body [01:09:00] squats.

I probably wouldn’t do burpees just because there’s too much opportunity to hurt yourself. Right before a race, you don’t want to tweak a finger or a wrist or something and you’re like, damn it. I was just trying to warm up like Ken said, now a freaking hand hurts. I can’t turn like I wanna turn, you know what I’m saying?

Wrap me up man. Wrap me up Eric. My, my wrist is all blown out. Call Ken, tell him thanks.

So yeah, avoid those type of high impact movements ’cause that’s not the day to do that. ’cause you, there’s no time to recover. So low impact, you can grab a chair and do body squats into the chair. If you can’t go all the way to the ground, just get some stuff to mobilize those legs, fill those knees and joints out.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m, I’m with you there man. Sumo squats. Even running with high knees right in place. Sure. A lot of that stuff. Did you get the heart rate up? Do some basic cardio? Yeah. Yeah. I, I’m

Crew Chief Brad: telling you, Eric, when we go to Summer Bash and CMP, we’re gonna have a GTM bootcamp every morning. We gotta do it. We should be stretch.

I love it. It’s like ba it’s like baseball practice all over again. You, you get there, you warm up, you [01:10:00] stretch, and you’re good to go. Everybody’s gonna laugh at us in the paddock until we’re the one jumping around at the end of the day and they’re all sitting in their little holes. It’s gonna

Crew Chief Eric: be starting their day

Ken Newbill: with the Java monster.

Whatcha talking about, dude? A body in motion is hard to beat. If you’re in motion before the other team, you’re gonna be more alert, more ready, and more prepared to go while they’re going. Oh, we’re gonna drive now. I was just putting my coffee down. Okay. I was just getting my coffee down. You guys will be hydrated, you will have eaten well, you will have moved your body, you will be doing some deep breathing, so you got plenty of oxygen flow.

And so when you, when you land into the vehicle, you’ll be more focused, man. I mean, that’s the biggest part. When people play sports and they, they don’t wanna call this a sport dude. You try driving that long at that intensity and not kill yourself or someone else.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s not like going to the grocery store, that’s for sure.

Ken Newbill: No, man, this isn’t, this is, this is not picking up bread. It’s just

Crew Chief Brad: as dangerous though.

Crew Chief Eric: Some would argue safer actually, but you know, that’s a story for another day. And you know, that actually brings up another really good point. I even heard the other day somebody was [01:11:00] talking about these DNA tests that you can run to tell you which foods are basically in your red zone, orange zone, green zone, et cetera.

So what do you think about that versus maybe more traditional styles of nutritional coaching and, and things of that nature?

Ken Newbill: Well, I actually use DNA in my practice. I have a very cool platform that allows me to take like 23 and me and ancestry.com reports and run ’em through my platform. And I can go all the way down to every snip in your body.

Okay, I can see your full code, which is cool, but what’s more important is understanding that epigenetic factor, right? Not just understanding your DNA. But understanding how your environment is affecting your DNA, how what you’re doing from a lifestyle perspective is affecting your DNA and what type of nutrients you’re taking into your body.

So what DNA is really great for is getting a good vision map of where your danger areas are. Oh, if I lean too far this way, I’ll probably get cancer. I am predisposed and I have these markers that are in red flags right here saying [01:12:00] I’m pretty susceptible to this. Or we could be like, dude, green tea is your shit.

That’s the best stuff for you because of X, Y, and Z snips. There’s certain things in green tea that would just make your life

Crew Chief Eric: better.

Ken Newbill: I’ve even helped a client figure out why. She’s been trying to stay off of fish because she heard it was bad for her and she craves fish like crazy. She’s supposed to eat fish.

Her DNA says, eat fish, avoid red meat, period. And she felt so much better when she says, I’m just eating fish like crazy. And I feel amazing. Why? Because she probably needs way more iodine in her body to feel better. When people tell me they don’t eat any seafood, I get very concerned and I take a good look at them because they probably have all types of deficiencies from not eating seafood because there’s no iodine in anything else we eat except seafood.

It used to be in our, in our land, but it’s not in our land anymore. And you’re not getting it from Morton’s table salt. That’s not even the right form of iodine. You don’t want that crap in your body. Yeah. So the DNA test, I love them. I love them as. One of [01:13:00] the markers, what I typically do is I look at DNA, I look at cellular information, so I wanna see your cell data, your cell tissue information.

I wanna see your DNA, your DNA is like that’s a foundation. Cellular data is like, this is who you are right now. And I also look at blood type, and I know people talk good and bad things about blood type diets and all this good stuff. My thing is not to go blood type for a pure play methodology. But to find correlation.

And so instead of going one test, most doctors, they’re locked in to blood test. What’s the problem with blood tests? They’re homeostatic. Your body’s doing everything in its power to make your blood perfect every minute of your life. So it’s not telling you the truth. So by time you see a bad marker in your blood, you’re really screwed.

We have other tests that allow us to see things before they become clinical. Let’s just take magnesium for example. I got into this argument with, not an argument, but a little bit of a dispute with a doctor. Once I had made a post about magnesium or something. He goes, man, I’ve run like over 5,000 labs with my clients [01:14:00] and not one of them have ever had a magnesium deficiency.

I said, that’s interesting, doctor. Don’t you find that like not scientifically valid considering the, the state of America and that we don’t have magnesium in our soils. Maybe the test isn’t the right test for what you’re looking for. And then I went to further explain to him only 1%. Our magnesium is ever in our blood at any given time.

Oh wow. It’s not the right test to test that functionality of the body. If you wanted to find out if you were good on potassium, well, if you ate a banana for breakfast that day, you’re probably gonna be good on potassium. But from a cellular reserve standpoint, you might have none. You might be down to like one milligram of cellular reserve for potassium, which means you’re an incident away from a heart attack.

It’s not a test. It’s looking at multiple vector points of a body and then also getting to understand what is the human body saying. And so I run a another assessment where it’s like a psychological evaluation for your health. And so you get asked some repetitive questions [01:15:00] for about 30 to 45 minutes.

And what we’re asking you is about symptoms, their severity level, the frequency and intensity, like how intense it is, how often does it happen, and what is it. We’ll map those back to nutrient deficiencies. Imbalances, preclinical and clinical conditions. And so now I’ve got the language of the body. I’ve got the language of your cell, I have the DNA code, and now I can cross reference that information.

And then if we have anything left undiscovered, like iron for example, you know there’s some good iron panels to get in blood. That now I can use some of that information to correspond with the other data to come up with a very smart way of doing things. And now we’re not, just depending on, this is the technical thing that normally happens out there, and probably many people out here are gonna probably nod their head when I say this.

You go to your doctor after you did your blood test and they take at your blood and they go, everything’s good. All the levels look good. All everything’s within range. Meanwhile, you didn’t go take your blood because you felt amazing. Probably got your blood taken ’cause [01:16:00] you felt like hot garbage and you still feel like hot garbage.

But the doctor’s sending you on going, I don’t know what else to do with you. Because they have limited tool sets. They’re gonna do a blood test. Or they’re gonna do a urine test problem with urine. Urine, just shows what you’re excreting. That’s it. This is what’s coming out. This is what’s left. This is extra stuff that we didn’t need to make blood with, right?

So we’re gonna let it out. So we just have to kind of take that into context. Wrapping our heads around what’s the right test to get the right information. Don’t depend on one source of information around the human body. ’cause the human body’s pretty damn complex. We’re obviously still trying to figure it all out.

You know, for us not to take that into account. Is not good. But man, I, I like DNA tests because for some people it’s the trigger to get them to do something right.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, you hit right upon something that I’ve been thinking about this entire time is, is getting it right. Right. And everything we’ve talked about here is all part of that larger recipe.

And I think it’s more than just the track hangover, it’s more than just the track weekend. It’s about maybe resetting your polarity a little bit and putting yourself on a trajectory for success, you know, in anything you wanna do, [01:17:00] whether it’s day to day or, or some other pursuit or other athletic event or whatever it might be.

So, you know, Ken, this has been an awesome bit of insight into, you know, your professional background, what you do in your practice and how it’s applicable to our often overlooked sport of motor sports and and yeah. And all that. So this has been absolutely fantastic.

Ken Newbill: I wanted to leave with this too, ’cause you mentioned this and so part of what I do as coach, I want you guys to think about this.

When you think about your health in general, you’re a sports person. You go out and you show up on a day to perform at a high level. But what if. You got a call today and they were like, man, we need you at the track tomorrow. We got a spot for you. There’s money on the table. Can you make it? Will you be ready?

That’s the question. Are you physically able to, and that’s one of the principles I live by. Can I be called upon today? Am I ready to perform at my highest level on a whims notice? Am I sleeping enough? Typically, am I eating the right things? Typically, am I taking good care of myself [01:18:00] typically so that if I get the call.

And someone’s like, Hey Ken, I need you to fly out to New York to do a show. Okay, let’s go. Right? I’m, I’m ready. If you’re doubting that right now as we’re going through this, are you ready to go do your craft? And if you question that, then you have to question your lifestyle and start to get real about some things.

You know, I’m trying to be on the earth until I’m at least 125. That’s how long I’m, I’m, I’m trying to be around. Okay? So I specialize in chronic fatigue, adrenal fatigue, physical and mental fatigue. I’m a fatigue specialist. And the reason I became a fatigue specialist is because I have a network engineering background.

We like systems. We understand systems and cross connects, and the body is nothing but systems. And they have routers, they have gateways. And so it’s not about looking at one thing, it’s about looking at the system as a whole and understanding where things intersect, where things are breaking upstream, downstream, northeast west, and getting a good troubleshooting mindset framework around that so that we can [01:19:00] get you back up running appropriately and getting very strong cellular fire, getting oxygen to deliver appropriately.

Getting a TP to be built appropriately happy mitochondria all over the place, you feeling like a million bucks and all your friends going, dude, how in the hell are you have that much energy? So if you’re into this game of what we’re talking about today, like you’re a badass driver and you’re, you’re, you’re all about it.

Put the best body you can behind the seat. Do that, put best body you got behind the seat, and if you wanna reach out or just check up on me. The hottest spot to find me right now is on Facebook. I know that might be old news for some of you younger listeners out there. My Facebook group is called Fatigue.

Fixers, you’ll find it if it has a black logo with these gold wings on it, like it’s got gold wings. That’s me and that’s new Bill of Health. I’m Ken New Bill. I’m a functional nutrition practitioner, holistic health coach. I’m also a hair tissue mineral analysis professional. I have the training to actually look at your cellular information, to understand the disposition of your nutrients and [01:20:00] toxicities.

All the things that are breaking you and you don’t even realize are breaking you. We can help get those things mobilized out of your body and bring you back into balance and vitality.

Crew Chief Eric: As Ken said, you know he is. He is multifaceted in the nutrition world. And if you wanna learn more about him and his program about hydration and nutrition, be sure to reach out to Ken via Facebook at New Bill of Health or check out his YouTube channel or his live seminars.

And I hear you got a podcast in the works.

Ken Newbill: I do Podcast is coming up. We’re still messing with the Title I, I wanna call it New Bill of Health so that I can talk about anything. So that’s probably what it’s going to be. We were gonna do fatigue focused. I think New Bill of Health will be a bit more catchy, but I invite people to come on out, check me out.

Join the Facebook group. You can check me out online at new bill of health.com. If you need a session, I give 15 minute free sessions, 15 minute discovery session. Let’s get on. Let’s talk about what you got going on. I’ll share with you how I can help you and we’ll get [01:21:00] you moving in the right direction from there.

But we can kind of vet each other out, make sure I’m the right fit for you, and I’ll definitely refer you to the right place if I’m not. The right guy.

Crew Chief Eric: And again, big shout out to Sam and Andrew for really kicking this on. Again, thank you to Ken, my longtime friend, for coming on and doing this and explaining to our Motorsport community all about the importance of hydration, health, nutrition, and all of this.

I cannot thank you enough for coming on the show. I think this has been absolutely fantastic.

Ken Newbill: Thanks so much for having me, man. You guys are great hosts. I love what you guys are doing. I wanna see you do more of this stuff and get, get super big so I can be like, that’s my guy. I know that guy. You’re awesome.

Your, your

Crew Chief Eric: driver number is 13. That’s all I’m gonna say. If they ask, what’s your driver number’s? 13.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. And I can say after this podcast, GTM members are gonna be the most fit. People around the paddock, all across the country. Anywhere we go, we’re gonna be the fittest group you’ll ever see. But in the words of the greats weird owl, remember everybody.

Just eat it or I, I [01:22:00] mean, I mean, stay thirsty my friends.

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 grantor 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@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 and 50 cents a month, you can keep our developers, writers, [01:23:00] 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.

Highlights

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

00:00:00 The Importance of Hydration for Racers
00:01:02 Welcome Ken Newbill: Hydration Expert
00:01:56 Understanding Proper Hydration
00:04:03 The Role of Minerals in Hydration
00:07:01 Pre-Hydration Strategies for Racers
00:10:27 Hydration Tips for Race Day
00:20:14 Debunking Hydration Myths
00:25:34 Best Hydration Drinks and Additives
00:37:23 Foods to Avoid and Consume for Hydration
00:41:47 Top Citrus Fruits and Their Benefits; Exploring Pears and Exotic Fruits
00:43:47 Juicing and Hydration Tips
00:46:47 Nutrition Strategies for Race Day
00:52:18 The Role of Protein in Your Diet
00:56:34 Healthy Snacking Options
01:00:05 The Soy Controversy
01:03:55 Physical Preparation and Exercises
01:10:57 The Importance of DNA Testing in Nutrition
01:17:05 Final Thoughts and Contact Information

Bonus Content

If you’re racing in four days, your hydration strategy starts now. Ken’s advice:

Cut processed sugars and simple carbs—they dehydrate you.
Eat lighter meals to conserve energy and digestive fluids.
Load up on fruits and vegetables, which are naturally hydrating and easy to digest.
Start sipping mineral-rich drinks like coconut water or homemade electrolyte blends.

Think of it as tuning your body like you tune your car. You wouldn’t show up to the track with low oil and worn tires—so don’t show up with depleted electrolytes. Dehydration isn’t just thirst. It’s:

Headaches and fatigue
Slower reaction times
Muscle cramps or twitching
Puffy hands, ankles, or face
Dry mouth or sticky skin
And worst of all: no sweat in hot conditions (a sign of heat exhaustion or stroke)

Ken emphasizes that dehydration affects your focus, reflexes, and safety. If your skin doesn’t bounce back when pinched, or you’re not sweating in the heat, it’s time to stop and rehydrate – fast.

Potassium, Magnesium, and the Power of Real Food

Forget the banana cliché – potatoes are potassium powerhouses. And magnesium? It’s often missing from commercial electrolyte drinks, but it’s essential for muscle function and mental clarity. Ken’s go-to magnesium sources include:

Dark leafy greens (yes, even kale)
Chard, collards, and bitter greens
Avocados (surprisingly high in water content)

These foods don’t just hydrate – they help your adrenal glands recover from the hormonal rollercoaster of racing.

🧪 Mythbusting: Urine Color and Beverage Temperature

Ken debunks two common myths:

Clear urine doesn’t mean you’re hydrated – it might mean you’re flushing out essential minerals.
Cold drinks don’t “cost” your body more energy to absorb. If they cool you down and make you feel good, drink them.

Instead of obsessing over pee color, try the skin elasticity test. If your skin stays pinched, you’re dehydrated.

Beyond Water: What Should You Actually Drink?

Gatorade isn’t what it used to be. Today’s best hydration options include:

Coconut water
Homemade mixes with citrus and sea salt
Electrolyte powders with magnesium, potassium, and sodium
Fruit-infused water for flavor and nutrients

Ken’s rule: if it tastes good and makes you feel good, it’s working. Just avoid sugary, caffeinated, or artificially colored drinks that do more harm than good.

Hydration isn’t a luxury – it’s a performance tool. Whether you’re behind the wheel or wrenching in the paddock, your body is part of the machine. Treat it like one.

This content has been brought to you in-part by sponsorship through...

The Beltsville Shell: The Porto’s Porsche Journey

Eric M

August 24, 2021

The Beltsville Shell: The Porto’s Porsche Journey

There’s a special kind of thrill when two petrol heads discover each other in the wild – especially across a boardroom table. That’s exactly how the Break/Fix team met Mark Porto, a lifelong car enthusiast whose Porsche passion runs deep. What started as small talk before a meeting quickly turned into a full-blown storytelling session, revealing a legacy of racing, wrenching, and reverence for the air-cooled era.

Mark’s automotive journey began in Beltsville, Maryland, a hotbed of drag racing in the ’70s and ’80s. His father was a quarter-mile racer turned offshore powerboat motor builder, eventually settling into the world of BMWs and – finally – Porsches. The first 911 to grace their garage was a 1972 model, green and gleaming, waxed with a diaper and outfitted with Weber carbs and a free-flowing exhaust. It wasn’t just a car – it was a sensory experience. The door thunk, the crayon-like smell, the flat-six rumble. For Mark, it was love at first ignition.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Mark’s dad wasn’t just a weekend warrior – he was part of a legendary crew chronicled in the book The Beltsville Shell: You Are What You Drive by Carey Thomas. The Shell station was more than a gas stop; it was a speed shop by night, with quarter-mile stretches marked out on Route 1. The book immortalizes the camaraderie, competition, and chaos of that era, and even features Mark’s father as one of the first to run a professionally sponsored drag car. For Mark, reading it was like unlocking a time capsule of his childhood.

Spotlight

Synopsis

Break/Fix interviews Mark Porto, capturing his automotive history and passion. Mark shares his journey from discovering his love for Porsche, starting with a 1972 Porsche 911, to owning a 1988 Carrera and later a 2008 911 GT3. He reminisces about his father’s influence, who transitioned from building American muscle cars to becoming a BMW and Porsche enthusiast. Mark discusses his experiences on the track and significant moments, including a lost engine and a switch to BMWs after selling his GT3. The conversation also touches upon motorsports evolution, favorite and least favorite cars, and the state of modern automotive design and culture.

Stories about Mark’s Dad – and the “Beltsville shell station” book
His car / motorsports past, all the Porsches, etc.
Giving away a motor to the Gardeners!
We also asked PitStop questions like: Favorite Car, Favorite motorsport Million-dollar Man, Ugliest car, thoughts on the EV revolution, etc. All very “car enthusiast” or “racing inspired questions”

Transcript

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

Crew Chief Eric: It’s always interesting when you come across a fellow Petrolhead, especially a Porsche enthusiast, while sitting across a boardroom table. Not long ago, our guest, mark Porto and I were killing time before a meeting and came to the realization that we were both car enthusiasts.

And Mark has some really interesting stories to share.

Crew Chief Brad: Finding another petrolhead in the most unlikely of places is akin to a Highlander moment, or I guess in nowadays terms, your spidey senses goes off. I’m really excited to hear all these stories and see where this is going. So welcome to Break Fix, [00:01:00] mark.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m, uh, thrilled and honored to be here.

Crew Chief Eric: So I gotta start with the first question. Is it Porsche? Porsche or Porsche? Which one is it?

Mark Porto: It is, uh, it is Porsche and only Porsche and will always be Porsche. My dad, uh, drilled that into my head when I was about eight years old and I think the first time I called it a Porsche, she said, uh, we call them Porsches.

And from, from that point on, it’s been Porsche for me. And every time I hear it, it just kind of cringe.

Crew Chief Eric: That being said, you’ve teed it right up in the sense that you understand that Porsche started before the year 2000, much like Audi and some of these other German brands that are now at the front of our conversations in the Petrolhead world.

So how far back does your Porsche legacy go?

Mark Porto: So my Porsche legacy goes back to about the time when I was, uh, you know, eight or nine years old, you know, like some of the folks in in the space. I’m lucky ’cause I was born into it. You know, it was just, you know, really, really interesting, you know, to, to look back at, [00:02:00] you know, how I got indoctrinated into the petrolhead world.

And, um, ironically, you know, my dad, you know, when I was a little boy, he was building and racing quarter mile race cars, American muscle chavelles and that sort of stuff. Eventually, you know, went from being a, a car builder, um, and, and racer to a motor builder and for off offshore powerboats and for quarter mile cars.

And then he got himself out of that and then became a BMW guy. And after that he was a Porsche guy. So, you know, about the time I was eight years old was the first time that I ever, uh, had a nine 11 in my dad’s garage, and, uh, understood the quirks and the sounds and the smells of those cars, and fell in love with them ever since.

Crew Chief Eric: Nothing quite like an air cooled nine 11. So what year, let’s start with that. What type of nine 11. So

Mark Porto: the, the first nine 11 my dad owned was a 1972, uh, nine 11. Nice. And it was, uh, it was green. It was beautiful. He would, you know, wax it and wa wash it with a diaper. Being [00:03:00] a, a sports car guy and a gearhead, you know, uh, that car was outfitted with Weber carburetors before we knew it.

It had a free flowing, you know, exhaust system before we knew it, and eventually, you know, found its way into becoming a track sled. So I really understood the grunt of a nine 11, you know, a flat six air cooled motor. And as a little boy there was, there was absolutely nothing like it. I mean, I still remember the sounds of that, the door shutting and, uh, you know, and that car and the smell that, you know, that car had, and, uh, it’s the, the

Crew Chief Eric: smell of melting crayons, right.

All old German cars.

Mark Porto: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, um, but that was it for me. And I love BMWs. I like Ferraris. You know, I, I always see. You know, the new Audi r eights and oh, that’s a pretty cool car. But for me, you know, um, nine elevens are, are really, uh, where, you know, where, where it starts and ends for me.

Crew Chief Eric: So did you come up like I did and you actually had a VW in the family before there was a Porsche?

Mark Porto: I did not. Um, you know, the, the first air cooled motor, aside [00:04:00] from a lawnmower that I ever, you know, that I ever was, had experience with, was, was a, a flat six, 3.2 liter nine 11 motor. And, um, and, and that, that was, that was it.

I liked Volkswagens, a neighbor, you know, even younger, had one and I. Never, you know, forget looking at the, you know, start and end of that motor. Like, that’s it, that’s, that’s all that’s in there. And yeah, that’s it. But for me, you know, my real experience came with, uh, with the nine elevens.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, as our listeners have come to find out, I’ve hinted throughout various episodes that we were a VAG or Volkswagen Audi group family for a very long time.

We’ve had a VW in the family since the very early sixties, you know, starting with my grandparents. And the curse has continued up until this point. And much like you, we didn’t end up with a Porsche in the family until way later. And our first one was the 74 9 14. So, you know, we’re a part of the min engine crowd.

You know, the, the, the ones that are shunned, the black sheep of the Porsche world, you know, we’re not gonna talk about those 9 44 people, but you know. But, [00:05:00] uh, no, it’s cool. I mean, there’s this comradery amongst us Aircooled guys, right? Where a lot of people did get their start with bugs and Carmen Gaz and things like that, and finally evolved into nine elevens.

And what’s funny is you and I both grew up in a similar area of the DMV in kind of central Maryland, and that was a hotbed back, especially in the late seventies, early eighties for drag racing. You know, you had Coleman Brothers, which is now auto fab, you had SART Wells, which was a big Porsche place. You had the guys that were sponsoring the bug out way back when, which was held at the Old Dominion Raceway.

Mm-hmm. So there was a lot of this air cold community in the DMV, which is now. I would like to say maybe evaporated a little bit, but I think it plays into your past a little bit more too. So let’s talk about, you know, the evolution of your Porsche past and your dad’s racing heritage.

Mark Porto: I think it’s a great story.

So I grew up, you know, in Beltsville Maryland, and my dad was a drag guy and he and his friends, and I was young, so, you know, my memories and the sights and the sounds [00:06:00] and the smells of those cars, you know, they, they really just evaporated to, you know, memories. Sometimes you think, oh, you know, it couldn’t have been that cool or there couldn’t have been that many motors and that many cars around all the time.

I was on Facebook one night and, uh, there was this, uh, group, Beltsville historic, Beltsville reminiscent group, and um, they were commenting on this book called The Beltsville Show, and one of the guys at. I live in an Annapolis now that I, I’ve come to, you know, become good friends with, well, he was part of the original Beltsville crew and we’re now talking late sixties, early seventies.

And he commented to me, he goes, Hey Porto, do you know your dad is in that book? And I’m like, what? And he’s just like, your dad is in that book. So I bought a copy of a book called The Beltsville Shell, and it’s the Beltsville shell and you are What You Drive. And the book was written by a guy named Carrie Thomas.

Who I remember his name. I remember his voice. I remember him coming and going, you know, in the house. And, um, he essentially outlines, you know, the, the, him [00:07:00] growing up in Beltsville and, um, integrating himself with a group of car guys. They were Corvette guys, they were Chevelle guys, they were Ford guys. And, uh, my dad, it was a University of Maryland.

As the story goes per the book. You know, they were working at the Shell, this car comes in, it was a chavelle and had, you know, no exhaust system whatsoever. And he said, Hey, I’m looking for a guy named Carrie. I heard he can help me weld these, uh, you know, uh, headers onto this car. And the guy said, yep, I’m Carrie.

And they became really good friends and my dad was indoctrinated into this group of gearheads and he was the first one who had a professionally sponsored track dedicated car. Wow. So, um, it’s so cool. So, you know, to read through this book, you know, it’s all, you know, you start recognizing the names and, and some of the stories and, um, you know, I know there was folks that passed away that my dad, you know, was telling me about, oh, you should have seen this guy in his Corvette.

It was blue and after the accident it was all over the road. Well, they kind of detailed some of these stories in the book and, uh, you know, to read it [00:08:00] one, it re jogs your memory, but it provided such clarity to, um, you know, to some of the stories that I, I had heard from my dad, you know, over the years.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s living proof that those stoplights were a quarter mile apart on Route one as well. Right. So,

Mark Porto: so these guys, they had, you know, the Beltsville Shell was a, was a service station and, and you know, back then gas stations weren’t really where you went and pumped gas. They were service stations ’cause the cars and you did a lot more care in feeding than cars today.

So I, it was a service station by day. It was a speed shop by night. So this book, you know, outlines and, you know, you and I grew up in the area, we knew it pretty well, where they actually had, you know, marked out quarter mile, you know, stretches and they could block each side of the road and test their cars, test their performance, build them, break ’em, build them again better.

So it was, uh, it, it’s cool, but, uh, it’s been a while since I’ve lived in Beltsville. I, I moved outta the area about 20 years ago. But, um, you know, just to, to read the stories, it brought me right back to, you know, that early age in time and then when I had my license and. [00:09:00] Kind of explored how fast cars can go on the same stretches of roads, you know, doing the same thing.

So,

Crew Chief Eric: you know, you said your dad’s first Porsche was that nine 11 s, but what was your first car?

Mark Porto: So, uh, my first car, my first car was a hand-me-down from my dad. So my first car was a, uh, Volvo Turbo. Uh, ’cause it was a family, you know, grocery getter. But it was a lot of fun and, um, you know, it treated me well.

The first car that I picked out and bought on my own Paul’s was a Volkswagen, GTI VR six Oh I, and, and my son, I have a, I have a 16-year-old son. He’s so much like us, it’s not even funny. And he is, uh, you know, he’s got his eye on the Japanese car. But every time I, we see one of, you know, the GTIs, whether it is an R 32 or type R, I’m like, that’s.

You should drive one of these. You should. You should. You know, you should try this. He’s like, I don’t know about a hatchback. I’m like, you have no idea. You know how much fun these cars are? That car did everything it should have done and then some, [00:10:00] it was reliable, it was fast. When I was bored with it, there were all sorts of mods, you know, it would float around the corners at the track.

I mean, it was, it was an unbelievable, unbelievable experience. And I kept that car clean. I never crashed it and uh, it treated me very, very, very well.

Crew Chief Eric: So I’m gonna guess that was a Mark three, or, yeah, it was a

Mark Porto: 1998 VW driver’s editions, VR six GTIs. Those things

Crew Chief Eric: are still sought after to this day. I mean, there’s a huge cult following for the third gen GTIs.

Yeah. So that’s really cool. At the same time you had that, my dad picked up a first Gen Rado VR six. So I was told around in that, in the nineties. Three SLC, you know, five speed, the whole nine yards. And you know what’s funny, looking back, you know, same power plane as the GTI, although the rado was built on the mark two chassis.

Yep. Uh, we shared some parts, you know, there’s some similarities with the mark threes, back then, you’re like 172 horsepower in a front wheel drive. It was like, man, even a drop of rain, or you hit the paint stripe the wrong way and you do a one wheel [00:11:00] peel, nowadays you’re like 172 horsepower. What is that?

That’s nothing.

Mark Porto: Yeah. The, the balance of, of weight in those cars too. Oh yeah. Is, you know, was, was so precision and, and it was such a, it was such a fun car to drive. Uh, you know, it was my Porsche, but I didn’t have a Porsche budget at the time. But it did, it did everything. And, um, I still wish I had that car today.

And like you said, there’s a cult following and I’m one of those guys every time I see them on the road, you know, I just, I’m, I mean, I’m amazed and you see them in really good condition. Yeah. People take care of those cars, which tells you, you know, it tells you something about the, uh, the importance of those cars in the overall big scheme of.

Crew Chief Eric: So color

Mark Porto: black on black on black.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. You couldn’t get that with the corrado. That was so annoying. We ended up with a red one ’cause my dad was dead set on a black leather interior, which only came in like two cars. If you wanted a black car, you got tan. I don’t understand the. These combinations, but you’re very fortunate.

So I happened to be a fourth gen guy. I, and it’s oddly enough, I went through a similar thing where, you know, I was buying a car and I was actually [00:12:00] dead set on getting a SVT focus.

Mark Porto: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And my dad was like, you need to drive the new GTI, you just got, you gotta go drive it. I’m like, ah. I don’t know. It’s kind of big and bloated.

I don’t like it, you know? ’cause I was a Mark two kid, you know, I wanted a mark two really bad. And then I went and drove a VR six and I was like, all right, I’m done. We’re good. Have a nice day.

Mark Porto: I like your dad.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay, so GTI, your dad’s got the nine 11 and so there’s obviously an evolution there. So what came next and what got you to the track?

Mark Porto: So that car got me on the track. So that car was the car that I would, you know, bring to, you know, uh, Friday at the track events and high performance driving clinics at Summit Point. Um, and those places. And that was the first car that I really. Piloted around a racetrack, um, with an instructor and had had an absolute blast.

Crew Chief Eric: Hear that listener’s Fun wheel drive. He started with that.

Mark Porto: Yeah, I mean, it, it really was. And it, I mean, you know, just a, a little plug for that industry. It really taught me what that car was capable of doing. Um, it taught me what I was [00:13:00] doing right and wrong in that car when I was driving it. I was a much better driver on the beltway and every exit ramp.

Um, you know, because of that experience. And when I started graduating to, um, you know, other cars that had more power that were more finicky, I don’t know that I would’ve kept those cars on the road as long as I did had it not been for that, you know, those track day, um, experiences. Well, I had that GTI and, you know, I always wanted, I always wanted a, a nine 11.

So my first nine 11 was a beautiful car. It was in a 1988. Carrera factory, correct. Carrera whale tail, foc wheels. It was an absolutely, you know, gorgeous, you know, silver, they call it Granite Green Metallic. It was a phenomenal car. It was unmolested. I bought it from a fellow named Tim Holt in Pennsylvania.

Tim Holt was the driver for the inner sports cars. So, um, he had a, you know, a very boutiquey dealership if you, if you can call it that. He had a garage full of beautiful nine elevens. Most of them were race cars. Um, but some of the, the, you know, regular nine elevens were just [00:14:00] cherry. That was the car that I saw and I had to have, damn it, that car became mine.

So a lot of fun. It’s, the door is closed. It sounded just like my dad’s. It had that burning crayon smell just like the rest of. It was a ton of fun and that car was even funer to start Moding when I felt that I was ready to kind of step it up and move that car in in different directions. You know, it had bilstein coil overs all the way around, so it had a European stance.

It didn’t have that stance look like you see a car shows it had a European ride height. Stance. Um, very, very, I mean, you could

Crew Chief Eric: still see a gap between the tire and the fender. Yeah, I get

Mark Porto: it. Exactly. Exactly. You know, but you gotta be careful what tires you put on because that gap is very important. After that came the, uh, you know, stainless steel fab speed headers on back, that unleashed a lot of power in that car.

That car also, um, you know, quickly got a fab speed, cold air intake in it and never chipped that car. The other thing that eventually [00:15:00] we wound up doing was doing a twin plug conversion on that car. Oh wow. Nice. Two, two spark plugs per cylinder, then fuel rails and fuel pumps and all of the, all the other stuff.

And it was a reliable, this can be, that car never broke down on me. It’s always treated me well. I never burned through, um, you know, parts aside from. Tires, because I was going through those, you know, as fast as we go through pancakes. Oh man. It was just, it was just a, a ton of fun to drive and it, it, it, you know, it made a lot of noise and, um, and, and made me, you know, made me really happy.

And that car was also a monster on the track, you know, in my opinion, limitless power. And it’s just very, very predictable, um, to drive still you as a handful to drive. But that turned into, you know, my track baby.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And there’s something to be said about that, that, that a lot of people don’t realize.

There’s a, there’s an allure and there’s a mystique around the older Porsches. Mm-hmm. But they are a handful to drive. They take a lot of awareness and a lot of concentration and a lot of patience in some respects. The new Porsches, [00:16:00] anybody can get ’em in go fast. And I’m not trying to offend anybody that’s listening, but it’s true.

There’s so many more computers and gadgets and gizmos and things keeping that, let’s call it bad design, under control because of the pendulum effect that it has. Just, it’s a front wheel drive with five reverse gears. Let’s be serious. But there’s an art to driving those cars. Fast and driving them well.

And when you do master it, it’s a lot of fun and you get in something else and you’re like, it’s just not quite the same, but it prepares you for some really interesting situations on and off track, for sure.

Mark Porto: Oh yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: There was a story you mentioned during our conference room session about a motor that mysteriously disappeared.

I believe this was for your Carrera. Do you want to unpack that one for

Mark Porto: us? So that’s, uh, oh God. Thank you for reminding me. Um, so as I mentioned, the Carrera had a lot of work done to it, and uh, when you start putting that kind of work into those motors, you start to measure the life of those motors and hours, not miles.

You know, I knew that there was gonna be a need for, you know, a new motor. [00:17:00] So I had, you know, Peter Dowes in, uh, Dowes Motor Sports build a 3.2 liter motor, not a dedicated track motor, but a performance motor that would go in a street car, um, that was still, um, drivable. That motor wound up in my dad’s garage, wrapped in plastic on a pallet.

Because he had more space than I did. You know, my dad, uh, eventually died of cancer, but as he started to get sicker and sicker with cancer, um, things that were important to him, he felt good about giving them away. So a lot of tools, you know, went to the guys that, you know, maintained his, uh, his home in his yard and other things like that.

And at some point, one of these guys said, Hey, you know, sir, what are you, what are you gonna do with that motor? He said, I, I don’t even know what that motor is. He said, I think it’s broken. He’s like, if you wanna take it apart and tinker with it, you’re more than welcome to it. And oh, man, next thing you know, they must have come in, you know, two of them, and lift it up the pallet and put it in the back of the truck.

And, um, we were there and I think it was like Christmas Eve or something like [00:18:00] that. I was in the garage and I came back, I said, dad, w you know, where’d you put the motor? You know, what happened to that motor? He goes, oh, that old motor, I don’t even know what, what car that was from. He said, I think that was broken.

I gave it to the landscapers. That was the last I ever saw of that motor and the last we ever discussed of it.

Crew Chief Eric: It took you a minute to get your job off the floor though. Yeah, I, uh,

Mark Porto: I, and you know, my fault shouldn’t have been there, you know, and um, but

Crew Chief Eric: everybody has one of those soul crushing car moments where you’re just like, did that just happen?

Whether it’s like the new motor you built just blew up or something like this occurs, or just, you know, anything could happen. But it’s just like there, everybody’s got a story like that. A moment like that.

Mark Porto: It was, it was still wrapped in plastic with my name on it. It was still wrapped in plastic. I didn’t even really open it and smell it.

I’m thrilled. My dad had a huge heart and, you know, thought he was making somebody happy. And I hope, I hope, I hope that motor wound, its found its way into, you know, something super cool. And, um,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, [00:19:00] because it would be really hard to put it in anything. It’s a flat six. It doesn’t fit a lot of cars. No,

Mark Porto: I, I, so I said either, you know, what were they building an airplane?

Like what are they doing with that motor? And uh, I have no idea. But that was the end of it. That was the end of

Crew Chief Eric: it. So let’s talk a little bit more about Porsche’s and so obviously you joined the Porsche Club. I think we’re in the same region as a matter of fact, which is another common ground we have here.

I’ve, I’ve literally been in PCAI think since I was a little kid, so, you know, it goes back as far as I can’t remember. But, but with that being said, so where did you evolve to from that early Carrera? Nine 11.

Mark Porto: So after that Carrera, so I wound up selling that car. Um, you know, it was, uh, one of those things where, you know, somebody wanted to buy that car and I felt they were the right owner for that car and they knew what they were getting.

They understood everything that was there. And, um, they, they hit that car with a paint meter and they said, it’s never been painted. I said, no, it’s all original. You know, the paint’s all original and the guy wanted it. They wound up buying that car. My next, uh, nine [00:20:00] 11 was a, uh, 2008 nine 11, um, GT three. Oh wow.

So again, triple black, black on, black on black. And, um, you know, that was, uh, that was kind of a dream come true for me. ’cause I, I, you know, watching the IMSA races and, and, and watching what GT threes do on, you know, on the circuits, you know, it’s just, just amazing to me. And I, I always wanted to be responsible for something that made that kind of sound.

The stars aligned and I wound up getting my hands on a, uh, you know, a black on, black on black, you know, nine 11 GT three. And it was, um, oh my God. It was a riot to, uh, it was a riot to, to drive and own and, um. A different Porsche experience. It was, um, it was hard to drive. You had it sat so low. You know, I went through three chin spoilers on that car.

Never ripped them off, but, you know, you scuff ’em and you’re like, okay. They’re like, uh, pencil erasers, you know, they wear down so quickly. So I would go through chin spoilers on that car. Brake pads were, you know, were, uh, were a lot of fun. Um, those big [00:21:00] ventilated discs were kind of like cheese graters and they would just take ’em down and, um, but the car was a blast.

I mean, the car was an absolute blast. I, um, did not do anything to that car. It didn’t mod that car at all. It just ’cause it didn’t need it. It had such an even distribution of power and it, it was quick and, um, you know, quick from start to stop and it stopped like a million bucks. And if you had a long road and, um, and were brave and you put the loud pedal down and let it eat, um, that car would, would, would scare you with how quickly, you know, the speedometer started to, um, point down and, uh, it was, it was amazing.

It was amazing to own.

Crew Chief Eric: So that you went from air cold nine 11 to water cold nine 11, that’s a whole giant jump. No, nine 60 fours, no nine 90 threes in between. Nothing straight to the 9, 9

Mark Porto: 6 platform. You know, my, my dream car is a 9 9 3, you know, and I’m not finished yet, you know, so when it’s time for another one, I would absolutely kill for a 9, 9 3 Carrera, you know, a Carrera or a, [00:22:00] uh, 9 6 4 Turbo.

There’s something about the lines of a 9 6 4 turbo there. I think it’s just one of the most beautiful cars ever built. And whether you see one of those on Instagram or you see one in real life, I mean, they just seem to get better and better and better with age. And I feel that way about the nine, nine threes as well.

But, um, you know, those are the, uh, those are the last of the last air cools, you know, one day, one day I hope. Um, you know, and get my hands on one of those as well.

Crew Chief Eric: And it’s funny you mention that ’cause just the other week I posted on Instagram, a friend of mine out in Washington State happened to pick up all original 9 9 3 garage.

Kept super low mileage in that like merlott color. They came out when they introduced him Beautiful car. You know, he’s a Corvette guy. He is that all the others cars. And he goes. That has been my unicorn, like basically a first run 9, 9 3. And I was like, man, you made it. You crossed that finish line.

Congratulations. And then it was like, how do you like it? He’s like, I, I love, it’s, you know, it’s the best thing ever. And I’m like, okay. [00:23:00] Now I will say, you know, I don’t know that I could own a 9 93 ’cause the prices are going up thanks to, and same with the nine 60 fours thanks to Singer. Right? They’re taking all those cars and turning ’em into those resto mods and all that kind of stuff.

And, and some of the other companies out there doing that sort of stuff. But I did get the opportunity to ride in a 9 93 twin turbo. Wow. And for me, that was like, it was right up there with like the F 40 and some of these other cars where it’s like, if I ever get a chance to ride in one of those, and I did.

And it was, it was mind blowingly fast. And what’s funny is, mm-hmm. It came from this desire from when I was a kid because my uncle owned a nine 30 turbo. And so I got a, a chance to ride in that with all the giant turbo lag and kicking you in the chest and everything that goes with that. And it just left such an impression that it was like, if I ever get a chance to, you know, ride in the biggest, baddest nine 11 turbo out there, I want to get the chance to do it.

And that was absolutely phenomenal.

Mark Porto: So it’s funny you mentioned your uncle’s nine 30, so I too have an uncle with a nine 30 that’s been in the family for a long time. And um, I remember when, you know, he was kind of [00:24:00] teetering on, you know, should I sell that car? Do you wanna buy it? And I didn’t have garage space, but I should have bought another house with the garage and a bigger garage and got my hands on that car.

That too was the first turbocharge Porsche that I had ever been in still to this day. You know, that’s another one that I would love to get my hands on. But, you know, that was a, that was an amazing memory. And, um, you know, I, I would, I would kill to get my hands on that car. I don’t think it’ll ever happen.

But in the prices of those are.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, they’re out of this world. Out of this world. And you know what’s even worse is if you have a slant nose, right? A real one. My uncles was converted. I won’t say why it was converted, but it was converted, but it also gave way to the fact of why our nine 14 was converted to a slant nose.

So it’s all like, it’s all related in one way or another. I mean, uh, so yeah, I mean there’s some really cool stuff with the older nine elevens. Like I said, when they made the switch to water. Cool. I think your GT three is one of those that everybody goes, yeah, that’s the car. I wanna, I don’t wanna say one of the last good ones, but it’s one of the [00:25:00] last driver cars, right?

Speaks that farik Newgen, right? That driving pleasure that we got from the Volkswagens and some of the older BMWs, like the e thirties and, and things like that, where now they’re space shuttles, they’re, you know, they’ve got all these computers and all this stuff and, and I notice in the Porsche world, people are really gravitating towards the Cayman, right?

Mm-hmm. Not the boxer so much, but the Cayman, which I secretly laugh and say, ha ha ha, they finally got the nine 14. Right? Ah, I gotcha. So there’s something to be said about all that. It’s all about the being a driver’s car and, and that, so what was the experience like at the track with the GT three compared to, you know, the other cars you had been with?

Mark Porto: Well, I mean, so that’s where that car really came to life. You know, that car felt at home on the track or any high speed, you know, opportunities as it did anywhere else. It actually felt more at home. You know, when you had that car at performance speed, again, it was super, super balanced. Just amazing, you know, distribution of weight and power.

You had to always be. One step ahead of where [00:26:00] you wanted to be versus where you were. ’cause you would wind up in, in a, in a bad place. The gearbox was so chunky and beefy, it forced you to think about, you know, every shift. And, and, and the clutch was so heavy. And yeah, you, you know, you became very, very autonomous over time.

But that was a car that you had to drive and you had to think about, it didn’t have the top end as a, you know, a zero one Corvette or, you know, some of the, you know, big American, you know, cars that would be on the track to, but in the turns and the twisties that car was, was butter. I mean, it was, it was unbelievable and, uh, predictable.

You could hammer a couple curbs here and there and that car would pop up and plant itself back down and you know, you never really had to get off the power. It just kind of, it took care of you. Just an absolute riot to drive horrible in beltway traffic. Horrible in beltway traffic.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, what is good in beltway traffic?

Mark Porto: I don’t, a helicopter. I don’t know. I [00:27:00] would, uh, on the, on the rare occasion where I’d drive that car to work or anywhere, you know, and I’d get stuck in, you know, bumper to bumper traffic. One you watch the temperature gauge start, you know, and you’re like, I thought there was, I thought there was water in this car, but, um, my leg would, would be so sore from the clutch.

’cause it was such a heavy clutch. And every time you, you know, engaged or disengaged the clutch, you had to think about it. ’cause you didn’t wanna be that, that guy with the stalled out nine 11 on the beltway, which never happened,

Crew Chief Eric: ever, never, ever, never,

Mark Porto: never.

Crew Chief Eric: You talked about the track a lot. So two questions for you and they kind of go hand in hand of the ones you’ve been to, your favorite.

The ones you haven’t been to your bucket list? Daytona

Mark Porto: Sports Car course is absolutely my favorite. It’s one of my favorite vacation destinations, and it is by far the, I think one of the coolest tracks to, um, to slide around.

Crew Chief Eric: So that’s the Rolex configuration, correct?

Mark Porto: Correct. Again, you know, I grew up watching IMS Acar races.

I grew up watching the 24 hours, was like the Super Bowl, you know, in my house. And, you know, and it’s been [00:28:00] slightly modified over the years, but that was the mecca, the pinnacle of motorsports. And, uh, you know, finally when I got there to, you know, witness a, a Rolex in person, it was unbelievable. But then to, to drive around the track and, and, and, you know, feel what that banking feels like to come off that banking into the infield and, you know, go from top gear almost, you know, tax.

Out to third year in the second gear and in a hard, hard, hard left turn. And then under power through the twisties again, it just, um, you, you know, you feel like Derek Bell. You feel like, you know, one of the, the racing icons who spent, you know, years moving around that track. I would love, love, love, love, love, love to, uh, me two tracks.

I would love to go around LA Mall and I would really love to go around the Nuremberg Ring. So as a gear head and watching all of the new cars get tested to see who can, you know, break the records on that. Um, you can’t help but watch a lot of Nu Nuremberg ring videos. I watch them all. I watch, you know, cup car races from the nineties, uh, because [00:29:00] hey.

It’s really cool and you get to see exactly where those guys position those cars and how they position those cars around that ring. I’ve never been there. Um, been to Germany a couple times, but I’ve never been to, to the ring. If I had a bucket list, um, and I do that, that one would be the top of the list.

Crew Chief Eric: Very cool. Get all sorts of those. The ones that surprise me are the guys that like live around here and they’re like, I wanna go to Watkins Glen. I’m like, dude, that’s like four hours. I know. Talk at least Gimme Laguna Seka or something, you know, co coda, I don’t know. Yeah, right. Yeah. No, that’s super cool.

So, mark, you mentioned imsa, and I’m a huge IMSA fan as well, and I, and I, I, I’m not shy to admit that my number one love is Rally, but we won’t talk about that because nobody likes talking about Rally. So it’s okay, we’ll find a guest eventually that wants to go there, but IMSA is my second love, right? So I grew up in the TransAm era, you know, Willie T Ribs, Hurley Haywood, this is when Hanok was running with those guys, you know, group 44 cars, all that kind of thing.

I was always rooting for the underdog, right? Mm-hmm. Having followed group B, I followed Audi into TransAm and then into imsa [00:30:00] where I found my, you know, my second home. Our listeners can’t see it, but, you know, you’re a Porsche guy, but you’re wearing some BMW wwa. So what’s going on here? Oh, you, you, an M eight, you M eight, M six guy, what’s going

Mark Porto: on?

No, no, no. Um, so my, so when I was, I was in high school, I think I was a senior in high school. Again, this is another one of those life episodes that I’ll, I’ll never forget. My dad, you know, had a, uh, had a Carrera, another Carrera, and um. I heard him in the garage and I was always, you know, I was always the guy that, you know, 11 millimeter wrench.

No, the, the other 11 millimeter wrench. So I was always running back and forth and, you know, I started hearing him calling my name, you know, mark, mark, mark, come over here. And he had his arms, you know, in the car and in, you know, Porsche contortionist fashion,

Crew Chief Eric: a hundred percent.

Mark Porto: There was an alternator that was bad in that car, but that alternator was like, you know, two weeks old in that car.

At that point he had had it. He is done. He said, I’m finished, I’m finished with nine elevens. These are the most expensive, you know, pieces of shit I’ve [00:31:00] ever owned. He said, I got, I got

Crew Chief Eric: no one that’s ever owned. A nine 11 has ever said that. Uh,

Mark Porto: and I, I, I still disagree, but, um, you know, just like that, you know, the garage was, you know, purged of, you know, specialty nine 11 tools and nine 11 service manuals.

There were other motors that were, you know, Grenada that were, you know, that were, um, you know, track motors that they, one by one by one, they all went out. And into the garage, you know, pulled a 1988 BMWM three.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh wow. Uh,

Mark Porto: so an E 30 M three.

Crew Chief Eric: Now your dad had good taste. That’s all I can say. So

Mark Porto: my, my dad, I, I mean, I, I, I, I was lucky growing up, you know, underneath his roof and, um, having the luxury of driving his cars.

’cause he, you know, he knew how to pick ’em and he knew how to take care of ’em. And he understood what they were, what they were capable of. But on top of everything else, he was more than willing to share them as long as they were there and they were. Clean and, um, I was respectful. He would allow me to [00:32:00] drive them and I could tell you stories of things that I did with those cars too.

It was absolutely nuts. But four cylinder water cooled, you know, front engine BMWM three, it didn’t have the grunt of a nine 11. It didn’t make the, the same sounds as a nine 11

Crew Chief Eric: GTI would beat it off the line. So, oh yeah,

Mark Porto: I mean, and it, it was anything but fast. But that car was balanced. That started a wave of m threes.

So back up when my dad was building, you know, Chavelle motors and that sort of stuff, he also had two BMW 2002. Nice. So, um, so, you know, he was always, he, he, he enjoyed, you know, German cars. Even back then when, you know, American muscle was his thing. He kind of, I guess decided, you know, I’m going back to my roots and, you know, there was A-B-M-W-M three in the garage and we had a good time with that car, you know, that was his baby.

And, um, then as BMW would release new models of the M three, he would grab them. Um, as I mentioned, my [00:33:00] dad, you know, got sick and passed away, but I was driving my nine 11 to a meeting and it was very, very rare that I did that. I was one exit away from the guy that I bought the car from. My dad called me and he said, Hey, you know, do you know anybody that wants any of these cars?

I can’t, I can’t drive ’em. And they’re all stick. And I said, you know what, what do, what do you mean? He goes, I, he said, they’re not doing anybody any good. He said, they’re all, you know, they’re all here. If you know anybody that wants ’em, any of your friends that are gonna hang on ’em, have ’em give me a call.

I gotta figure something out. Tears in my eyes. Hung up the phone five minutes later. Um, the guy that I bought my GT three from called and he said, Hey. He’s like, you know, it’s, it’s Omar. I said, I know exactly. I recognize the number. And he said, you don’t still have that car. I said, I do. He goes, what did you do to it?

And I said, I’ve done brakes. I’ve done tires, I’ve done oil, and that’s it. He’s like, how many miles are on that car? And I said, I three th I think I put 3000 miles on that car. He said, you’re not interested in selling? And I said, [00:34:00] uh, no. And then I kind of thought about it and I’m like, I don’t know. I’m like.

Let me go to this meeting and drop by the shop, and you, you tell me what, what, what we’re, what we’re dealing with. And, um, he had a buyer for the car. They offered me as much money as I paid for it. So I never lost a nickel. I had a lot of fun with it. The next thing was an Uber ride back to my dad’s garage.

My dad’s house. He said, what are you doing here? I said, I, I think I’m here to pick up A BMW. Which one, which one do you want me to buy? And he’s like, huh? And I said, yeah. I mean, I said, my sold my nine 11 today. Now I have space in the garage. Which one do you want me to buy? I wound up driving home his BMWE 46.

Which was the 12th BMW imported into the United States. So he was on the wait list for that car two years in advance. So that was a very clean, very, very low mile. Um, you know, BMW and, and I took his hat and, uh, along with the BMW and, um, I don’t know, they just, you know, they’re special to [00:35:00] me ’cause they were special to him, not a nine 11, but they’re special to me ’cause they were special to him.

So, and that’s, that’s kind of where that came from.

Crew Chief Eric: So I gotta, I gotta pull a couple threads on this. First of all, mad props to your dad for going BMW and not 9 44. I think he dodged a bullet there. Again, no offense to the 9 44 people, but you know what I’m talking about. Okay. Yeah. Mechanics made a living on those cars.

Yep. Second you mentioned Omar, that’s Omar from Intersport, correct?

Mark Porto: That’s absolutely correct.

Crew Chief Eric: And for any of those of you that are listening in the DMV, we all travel in very small circles here in the Potomac region of PCA. So, you know, everybody knows who Omar is. So hats, hats off to him if he’s listening to this episode.

So, very cool.

Mark Porto: I bought a few Porsches from Omar. I can’t speak highly enough about the operation he runs and the care that he, uh, takes of the cars and his, um, his ability to find cars that are very, very clean, very, very special, very, very, um, you know, I mean, they’re doing a, they’re doing the, the, the mother of all PPIs on those [00:36:00] cars.

So when you’re dealing with him and any, any of his inventory, um, you know, you know, you’re getting a very, very clean, very strong example of what it is you’re buying. And he’s, he’s a lot of fun and he is easy to work with. He’s got some phenomenal mechanics under, under his roof as well.

Crew Chief Eric: So now what’s in the stable BMW or Porsche?

Mark Porto: I have a fishing.

Crew Chief Eric: So just like owning A BMW or an E 36 at least. But anyway, moving on.

Mark Porto: Well, so I have, I have space in my garage right now, so, you know, I, I got rid of the, the E 46. It was not the car for me. It was a lot of computers and a lot of weird things in that car. So, um, it was fun. It was a quick car.

It did not, was it

Crew Chief Eric: the SMG or was it the manual?

Mark Porto: No, it was a manual. It was an manual. So, um, that’s all I’m

Crew Chief Eric: gonna say. It’s good.

Mark Porto: Yeah, so, so it was not an SMG car. The E 30 is still in the family. Nice. So, um, that will probably be the next one that, you know, I bring here. And, um, it’s been, you know, the car is very, very [00:37:00] clean.

It’s been sitting for a little while, so, you know, garages and, and cars that sit in rubber are a terrible combination. So it’s gonna require some, you know, some TLC and some elbow grease. That’s really it. I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m without a cool car right now or a fun car right now, but, uh, you know, soon. Come, soon come.

I’m not sure. I’m not sure which direction I’m, I’m gonna go. Which,

Crew Chief Eric: which leads into a great question ’cause I gotta bring it up. Since you, you, you’re living in both camps. What do you think of the new BMWs?

Mark Porto: Uh, man, it’s funny. I saw one on the road today and the guy made a turn and let it eat and it made a great, it made a whole hell of a lot of sound and it looked like a lot of fun.

It was a new brand new M four. I think they’re really, really cool looking cars. Um, they’re so. Computerized and there’s so much stuff and gizmos and gadgets in them. They’re not as raw as the types of cars that, you know, excite me.

Crew Chief Eric: So you’re okay with that front end? Are you the one person that I’ve talked to That’s okay with that snout?

Mark Porto: No. I, I, you know, the, they haven’t been my [00:38:00] thing, but, um, you know, when you see a car and a car shoots down the road and you’re like, for the first time, you’re like, that wasn’t. You know, that caught my attention. That wasn’t that bad. I, I literally had that experience today with a triple black, uh, you know, brand new BMWM four.

And the guy, you know, was, was slow to make the turn, but once he had, you know, all four wheels pointed in the same direction, um, he got on it and it did make a hell of a lot of noise and it disappeared under it pretty fricking fast. I, I, I, oh, absolutely.

Crew Chief Eric: I was impressed

Mark Porto: by how quickly that car, um, how quickly that car, um, you know, vanished.

But I don’t know. They’re, they’re, they’re, they’re okay. There are too many of them. There are too many of ’em. One of the gripes I have with all these cool cars today is you see so many of ’em, you know, m fours, m fives, m sixes, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re everywhere. A MG Mercedes, everywhere you look, they’re awesome.

They’re super special, they’re very expensive. But there’s just so many of ’em. I, I can’t believe how many, you know, cars these manufacturers are pumping out, um, these days. [00:39:00] You know, and I remember when an M three sighting was a rarity, you know, when a nine 11 sighting was a rarity when a nine 14 sighting, well, that’s still pretty much a rarity now, but you know, you, you, you just didn’t see them and encounter them as often as, um, you know, you do with all this new age space, age stuff.

Yeah. You know?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. They’ve become more available. But I also look at it from the other perspective. A lot of those specialty cars. We’re grounded and born out of motorsport, and now they’re born out of status. So it’s like, I need to have an M four and they’ll take, you know, the factory will take an M four or a private tier.

I’ll take an M four and go racing with it. But it’s not like the e thirties or the one 90 s or the early nine elevens and all the other, you know, specialty cars. And it’s like, let’s call it a, let’s call a spade a spade. We took a shit box and we turned it into a race car and we went to go compete against the big boys, right?

We were the underdog with, you know, the evolution. Let’s, let’s look at the E 30. It’s an evolution of the 2002 platform, right? Mm-hmm. And then they went, oh, we gotta put flares on it. ’cause we wanna put big more meat under [00:40:00] there. You know, we want to compete with Audi, with the Quattro, with the big flares and all this kind of stuff.

And it was, it was kind of a sign of the times, right? But now I feel like we flipped it on its nose. And to your point, there’s a SLS in everybody’s driveway. Mm-hmm. I mean, that’s an exaggeration. Mm-hmm. But it’s not like, oh my God, like the goal wing, right? Like the, like the old ones where you’re like, that’s something really cool.

It’s really rare, you know?

Mark Porto: You know, I second that. I mean, I really like, um, I really get into the in races and go in in person because, you know, there’s so, so much of a similarity of what you see on the track, um, and how it translates to what they eventually build for the road. Um, whether it’s a Ford Eco Boost motor that, you know, they’re running in, you know, a Daytona prototype car.

Well now Ford Eco Boost Motors are all over the place, um, on production cars and a lot of that research and development test and engineering was conducted on a track. Oh yeah. Um, and finds its way into the cool stuff, you know, that’s. That’s in the dealerships and on the lots these days. So that’s what I think is amazing about IMSA racing, especially [00:41:00] GT Daytona and the, you know, GT LA Mile class where the cars resemble what you see on the, on the streets, or if you’re lucky enough in your driveway.

Crew Chief Eric: Since we’re back on that, what do you think about the current changes to IMSA with the classing, the potential merger with WEC? The lack of LMP one cars, which is like, you know, for us IMSA guys, it’s like Formula One. That’s where the technology trickles down from is LMP, right? So what are your thoughts on that?

Mark Porto: Well, you know, I, hmm. So you, you guys like us, go back a long way. And I remember, you know, going to Daytona and there were privateers, you know, there were people who had, they didn’t have these 18 wheelers with, you know, multiple different cars and chassis and motors. They were, they were, you know, family oriented people who loved motorsport.

And, um, the diversity of the field, the diversity of the sounds in those cars was what was amazing to me. You know, from, you know, Mazdas to Porsches to, you know, BMWs to Audis, like there was everything. And, um, it’s [00:42:00] gotten to be such a high dollar, high, um, you know, cost of entry series. I wish there was a way that they could e devolve back into, you know, the pure roots of that, that type of racing.

And, um, yeah, of course you can go to other venues and watch other certain, you know, other. You know, classes of racing that still have, you know, historic cars. But when you get to that scale, to that, that level with those drivers, you know, I’d love to see it, you know, kind of devolve back into, you know, what it used to be

Crew Chief Eric: to that exact point.

I’ve heard many people say that about nascar. It’s like, let’s bring it back to the old days of stock car where, yeah, I mean, let, let’s be, let’s be real. How many rear wheel drive Camry v eights have you ever seen on the road? They don’t exist. They’re all two frames with, you know, it’s almost like an RC car.

Put whatever plastic body you want on top of, you know, the underpinnings and, and away you go. So I would love to see a stock challenger out there, or a true Camaro or a Mustang or whatever it is, and have them go head to head. So [00:43:00] I agree. I think mo more and more disciplines are that way. And you know, of the big ones, like F1 is not like the air in days.

Alan Pro stays when I was a kid, you know, watching that. I mean, formula One today, it’s night and day different, you know? Yeah.

Mark Porto: Yeah. No, I, I mean, it absolutely is. Those cars are amazing. The performance they get outta those cars, the fact that they can stick those cars to the ground, um, you know, with all of that power, you know, and, and run those cars at those speeds on those tight circuits without, you know, a, a, a yard sale of parts after a a a session is just, just amazing to me.

But again, that’s not, you know, that’s not an every man’s, you know, everyday man’s, you know, um, endeavor anymore. At one point it kind of used to be

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and, and, and to that point, let’s, let’s use stock car, or let’s use NASCAR as an example. I just recently, you know, read an article came across my desk where they were talking about how, you know, we already know they’ve, they’ve gone away from carburetors, right?

Mm-hmm. They’re,

Mark Porto: they’re,

Crew Chief Eric: they’ve gone fuel injected. Mm-hmm. Now they’re talking about doing away with the four speed [00:44:00] manual and going to a five speed sequential transaxle. Right? A totally different drive, train configuration. I mean, they’re coming into, oh, I don’t know, the 1980s now, which is great. But, but the point is.

It’s where they would go to figure out how stuff would last It’s, it was an endurance thing or longevity thing. It’s like that gearbox is junk. We’re gonna go back and redesign it. Why would we put that in the streetcar if it breaks all the time? Stuff like that. And so those really fancy setups, and even for Porsche, the PKS and all that stuff is watered down from GT racing and all that kind of stuff.

So it does eventually find its way in the mainstream, but it’s not the same as in the old days where they took a tempest and built a GTO and then went to the track,

Mark Porto: you know? Yeah. One of the things on my bucket list that I haven’t done yet is to go to the historic 24 or one of the historic, the HSR series.

Because those are all car guys that have acquired those cars or rebuilt those cars. Yeah. You know, they’re running them and they’re running ’em [00:45:00] at speed and it’s not an exhibition lap, you know, but, um, they’re not banging into each other for all the right reasons. You know, when I look at my calendar with family and work and everything else and I’m like, all right, you know, Daytona weekend, or should I go, you know, to an HSR event, historic 24?

Kind of to answer your question, I find myself getting more excited about an HSR, you know, weekend at the track just to see and listen to those cars. ’cause they’re very, very different than, oh yeah, what’s going on today? I mean, the, the difference in decibels spending 24 hours at the track or wherever with today’s cars versus, you know, the cars of yesterday.

Absolutely night and day. I mean, you know, when I’d go Daytona with my dad for days, your ears would ring from the sounds of the RX sevens. I mean, those cars would, would go by. It was absolutely deafening Ford Mustangs and the Camaros and the Corvettes. I mean, you would feel those cars in your chest. You could feel the cars in your chest until they got rid of the Corvette Daytona prototypes.

And the, um, [00:46:00] you know, the last version of the, uh, what is it? Uh, C seven C seven, the C seven C seven, but I mean, just the thunderous, you know, voice of that car. I mean, they’re playing the American anthem as they go by. Oh, a hundred percent every lap. And. Now, you know, there’s so much quieter, everything’s turbocharged and, um, it’s so much quieter and you can literally hear the wind going over those cars.

If you listen carefully, well just

Crew Chief Eric: wait till they’re all EVs. You won’t hear anything.

Mark Porto: I know. I mean, it’s, it’s so, it’s weird. So I have mixed feelings about, you know, merging and blending all these things. Yeah, I mean, you’re gonna see the best of the best drivers and the, the highest caliber teams, which is really, really cool to see the way those guys and girls do that, you’re getting to, you know, you’re getting to the stratosphere of, uh, of spend and cost of entry is just prohibitive from anybody who isn’t the owner and founder of WeatherTech.

I mean, it’s very, very, very tough to get into those, into that series.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, and to your point about the historics, I think the only exception to that rule is Goodwood. If you’ve ever watched a Goodwood race, those guys. [00:47:00] Send it. And then some, they do not care that they’re out there in a $50 million, one of one Ferrari.

I mean, they’re in it to win it. It’s crazy.

Mark Porto: Yeah. I see them bouncing off the hail ba uh, hay bales and all that other stuff. But, uh, festival of Speed, I mean, they’re bringing it.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, you could sit and look at a car, you could drive it. It’s what it was built for, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, speaking of driving cars, you said your stable’s empty.

You’re looking at, you know, you’re looking at maybe something new. Let’s talk about what’s on your list. Let me lobby you an easy one, in your opinion. Sexiest car of all time.

Mark Porto: 9 64 Turbo would be the sexiest car of all time for me. It’s 9 64 Turbo, wildly sexy to me. I’ve always had an eye for Ferrari. Uh, F four 30 C two.

I’ve never owned a Ferrari. My, you know, my dad’s never owned a Ferrari. Um, you know, I don’t know that I’ll ever, you know, step into the Ferrari, you know, category. But, um, there’s something about four thirties. I just have always excited me, thought we super cool. So either a 9 64 turbo, preferably [00:48:00] black. Or silver or a, uh, Corone Rosa Ferrari.

Crew Chief Eric: Remember I said your dad was a smart man, that’s why he never owned a Ferrari, right?

Mark Porto: I know, I know. I just, uh, I hear the stories and um, you know, I hear the stories, but you know, in terms of, you know, living art, that car is one of ’em, in my opinion.

Crew Chief Eric: So sexiest. But if, you know, if you were the million dollar man, you had a million dollars to spend on a car, you’d buy anything you want.

It could be one car, it could be 12 cars, it could be 150 Crown Vix, if you want it to be. Are those same two cars on the list or is there something else just further out of reach?

Mark Porto: No, I mean, uh, I’m a simple guy, you know, and that, that, that would be for me. You know, I would, I would I perfect world somebody else’s money, or if I had extra, extra, extra money.

9 64 black or silver or a red, a red four 30 Ferrari. I think that would be, or both. Um, I just think that would be such a, you know, either or. It would be such cool cars to, uh, you know, to, to have.

Crew Chief Eric: We gotta flip that on. Its noses though. So [00:49:00] ugliest car of all time.

Mark Porto: Oh man. The ugliest car of all times. Um, that’s an easy one.

The Avanti. Have you ever seen one of those avantis that was the stude baker? Uh, yeah, I mean, it’s absolutely insane. So, you know, there is a, there is a, a, a woman who drives one of those as a daily driver around Annapolis. So I see it all the time and it just, it seems to get worse and worse and worse.

Worse. And, um, and you, you look at it, you’re like, what the, you know, what was the di designer, you know, thinking like, it’s, it’s crazy. It’s absolutely crazy. So, um, that, that one is just never gets better, never gets better. That

Crew Chief Eric: was, that was the Hail Mary for Studebaker though, right? I mean, they had some weird cars, but that one definitely took the cake as they were sunset the brand, I mean, I don’t know, it shares qualities and some lines with other cars, but I’m with you.

I have seen some though, where guys have lowered ’em and put big wheels on ’em, kind of do the whole like, you know, old Corvette style of like, you know, tasteful rest mods, but then you just get to that front end and you’re like. What happened? [00:50:00] It’s got no

Mark Porto: nose. Yeah. This particular one is, is atrocious. I mean, it has, um, silver and gold wheels Ooh, um, spokes, you know, and they must be, you know, 90 spokes per wheel.

I mean, it’s crazy. How do, how they, the poor person who cleans those? You know, I, I, you know, I look at it and it’s got curb feelers on it. Um, there are all sorts of gold, dude, daddy, you know. Oh man. Uh, accents on the car. So it really, I mean, it, it went from bad to worse with that one in a heartbeat. And I, like I said, I, I happen to see this all the time, does have nice paint, they take care of it.

It’s clean. Um, it’s somebody’s pride and joy and hats off to them, but, um, just, just, absolutely. Absolutely. So, so now I’m gonna

Crew Chief Eric: ask a really pointed question. Ugliest Porsche, in your opinion.

Mark Porto: Ugliest Porsche. In my opinion, you can say the nine 14. It’s okay, I get it. No, I, some of these new nine elevens, the new nine nine twos, I don’t love the looks of those cars.

They’re [00:51:00] gigantic. Um, yeah, I thought

Crew Chief Eric: you were gonna say like, I was expecting, and I’m sure the audience is groaning going the 9 28. Right? That’s what I was expecting you to say, but No, you, I’m surprised.

Mark Porto: Yeah. I, yeah. Nine 20 eights are atrocious. Um, they are bad. The new, the newest nine elevens. The nine, nine twos.

I get it. They’re cool cars. They’re four liter PowerPoint. It, it, I mean, they’ve got, you know, tons of power, but, uh,

Crew Chief Eric: and the motor mysteriously keeps getting closer to the driver every year. Right.

Mark Porto: When you open the, when you open the, the trunk of one of those cars, you know where the motor is. You no longer see the motor.

You see a place to put oil. You see a place to put water, and that’s really it. I think that it’s a sin, you know, I mean, the people that buy those cars that are true Porsche, people are crying out loud. You don’t even, you’re not even allowed to see the motor in that car unless it comes outta the, you know, from the bottom.

From the

Crew Chief Eric: bottom. Yeah, exactly.

Mark Porto: I’m baffled by that. Just blows me away.

Crew Chief Eric: Retro question for you. Is the 9 59 still cool or was it ever cool to begin with?

Mark Porto: I thought it was [00:52:00] super cool. You know, I thought it was a super cool car when they, when they came out with that. I mean, uh, God, we’re going back to the, you know, 88, 89 when that car was on the street.

So, or, well, not on the street, but in the magazines. I just, you know, I, I thought it was so futuristic at the time and the amount of power that it was pumping out and the fact that it was Twin Turbo and four wheel drive was kind of unheard of, you know, for a, um, I, I think, I think it’s a pretty cool car.

And, um, and I like that car because on the inside of that car, you don’t. There’s no difference whether you’re in my old nine 11 or you’re in, you know, in an extraordinarily rare 9 59. I’ve never been in, so I’ve never been in one. I’ve seen them in person a few times, but, um, I’ve never been in them, but they say they have a tremendous amount of punch and, um, they’re just pretty predictable fun cars to drive for those of ’em, those of us who are lucky enough to get in ’em, you know,

Crew Chief Eric: I won’t nerd out on the all wheel drive system, but, we’ll, we’ll sidebar that, but I’m just gonna say Audi and we’ll move on from that.

But, uh, [00:53:00] but I, I do wanna ask another kind of question that goes with that. So, if you were the, we, we got all the votes cast, and you’re the last one to cast your vote.

Mark Porto: Mm-hmm.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m 59 or F 40. Which one is it?

Mark Porto: F 40. Really? Ah, yeah. F 40. They’re two different animals. You know, Ferrari makes race cars and they happen to make street cars too.

So that F 40 was really the, you know, the generation of the racing, you know, heritage, you know, built into carbon fiber with a place to put a license plate. You see an F 40 in real life, they’re a lot smaller than they look in the magazine. They’re a lot lower than they, they, you know, they look in the magazine, they’re tiny, they’re essentially race cars.

There’s nothing to them. And I think that is so cool that, you know, car manufacturer will, you know, take that. Racing heritage and package it into, you know, something that is street legal, the sounds of those cars, the looks of those cars. There is nothing, there’s really nothing like an F 40 in, in my opinion.

But, um, [00:54:00] yeah, I’d go F 40

Crew Chief Eric: I, I’m okay, I’m okay with that answer. That was that,

Mark Porto: and that was the first car that I bought in four is a seven too.

Crew Chief Eric: At one of these years, we’re gonna stop poking fun at Corvette and, and it’s not because we dislike them. I have, I’ve had the very fortunate luxury of instructing in many a car as a coach to include Cortes, and I’m a huge fan of the C sixes and the C sevens and things like that, especially the C seven.

I think they finally had gotten it right then. That’s just my opinion, but whatever. What do you think of the new one? What do you, what do you think about the mid engine Corvette?

Mark Porto: So, um, I’m with you. I thought the C sevens, uh, you know, not a car that I would ever own or buy, or a car that I ever thought I would like.

I, I think the C sevens were amazing. Great sound, amazing power. They certainly got it right. The new ones, you know, I don’t know. I mean, you know, you see them coming at you on the road and I am, they catch my attention, they catch my eye. So I think they’re really cool looking. I think they need to mature a little bit [00:55:00] and, um, and iron some, you know, some kinks and bugs out and, um, they’re gonna be pretty hot.

I think they’re gonna be pretty, pretty hot car, you know, but they’re definitely not, you know, definitely not a, a c seven Corvette in my opinion, you know? I mean, will they catch my attention? And, um, you know, I mean, shit, they’ve done an amazing job with those cars on the track. They’re certainly proving themselves on the track.

That says a lot because that technology too finds its way into. The dealership.

Crew Chief Eric: So Mark, you know, having gone through, you know, racing and, and we’ve talked a lot, you know, you do a bunch of virtual racing and whatnot. So if, if I kind of place this as a virtual question, if you could meet anyone kind of racing legend, sit down, have a beer with them, who would it be?

Mark Porto: Oh, gosh, that’s a, that’s a good question. Um, God, man, put you on the spot. It would definitely be, you know, maybe a Nick Tandy or one of the Porsche factory drivers. Patrick Long, I mean, I, I, you know, I, I I look at these, you know, these guys that are driving, you know, for [00:56:00] Porsche, because I love the cars. I’m just so envious of, you know, of them.

And, um, but to answer your question, Burg Meister, if I could drink some beer, it would be with York Burg Meister, preferably in Germany. That guy’s had an amazing racing career. He is, seems to be everywhere, still just an amazing life. The, you know, the life that all of these drivers, these professional drivers live just is amazing.

But Burg me, that would be, uh, that would be my fellow that I drink some beer with.

Crew Chief Eric: I, I think I’m with you there, man. I, I would love to meet like. The factory Audi Group B team. You know, Michelle Muon, Walter Royal Ola, you know, stick, bloom fist. Any of those guys, I’ll have a beer with any of them. It’s, but there’s one in particular, and this is why I brought up the virtual racing part, especially I racing, I happened to watch the video, I think it was last year or the year before, where they released the imsa ITU, you know, GTO Audi 90.

And they interviewed Hanok. Mm-hmm. About it. And so he does this voiceover and they show [00:57:00] him driving the real car and then some footage from I racing and all this kind of stuff. And it was one of those moments where it was like, I guess, you know, with the way we do video nowadays, compared to back in the day, I felt like, you know, I was in the room with him.

It was one of those kind of experiences and it’s like. I would have a beer with Hauk, like he seems like the coolest guy in the world. He is, got the longest resume, all the crazy stuff. He’s, he’s been fast in every car he is ever been put behind the wheel in, you know, and it goes back to his dad, you know, hauk s senior back to the Silver Arrows days.

I mean, his racing pedigree is, is absolutely incredible. So that’d be my vote if I had to pick. But, uh, yes.

Mark Porto: He’s, uh, he’s had a, a phenomenal, you know, phenomenal career and, um, and has driven many, many, many different, you know, brands of cars as well. I mean, I remember hunch stuck from his b BMW days, you know, uh, driving E 30 M threes when, uh, and uh, CSI BMWs even before that.

So, I mean, it’s just super, super cool.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, what did it for me, it wasn’t all the Audi stuff. It was in the two early two thousands when he participated in their version [00:58:00] of iroc. You remember we used to have, remember we used to have IROC here in the us? I remember

Mark Porto: that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Well over there they had the Beetle Cup in the uk and it was like all these famous race car drivers and he’s out there crushing it in a front wheel drive beetle.

I’m just like, you’re the man. That’s all I have to say.

Mark Porto: Ah, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. Yeah. I wish, I wish we had that. I, I, I wish we could live those days again. I mean, there was so much cool history, uh, you know, made around the racetracks, you know, for drivers, for cars, for fans, and, you know, maybe one day we’ll get, get there again.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And you know, and that’s really the premise of, of what we’re doing here at GTM, that’s why we’re talking to guys like yourself, right? Is to continue to spread that motor sports enthusiasm to remind people there’s so much of the motorsports world and the car world entangled and car culture, you know, entangled in our daily lives.

That it’s, I don’t know how we can just give up on it. There’s such great stories and memories, the freedom of driving. We talk about this throughout the show and, you know, you’re just a reminder of [00:59:00] all of that. And it’s been an absolutely fantastic experience talking with you and, you know, our listeners getting to know you a little bit better and, you know, hearing your story and all that.

Mark Porto: Uh, no, I, I, I, I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Eric. It’s been, uh, it’s been a great, you know, great conversation and thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to share a couple stories and, uh, and uh, spend some time with you.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And if you’re out there listening, maybe you’ll see Mark Trackside with us this year.

Once he picks a new car, we’ll have to borrow one of ours, I suppose, from the fleet.

Mark Porto: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. I would love to meet you guys out there and, um, at, you know, at at, at a minimum at least, you know, be there cooking hamburgers and fuel you guys up. I, I, I love a track day,

Crew Chief Brad: so

Crew Chief Eric: absolutely.

Crew Chief Brad: Thanks for stopping by, mark.

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 [01:00:00] 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@gtmotorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you.

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, [01:01:00] without fans, supporters, and members like you, none of this would be possible.

Bonus Content

Mark’s own driving story started with a Volvo Turbo hand-me-down, but his first true love was a 1998 VW GTI VR6 – black on black on black. It was fast, reliable, and endlessly moddable. Track days at Summit Point revealed its hidden talents, and Mark credits those early HPDEs with shaping his driving skills and preparing him for the beasts to come.

Mark’s first 911 was a 1988 Carrera in Granite Green Metallic, bought from Tim Holt of Intersport. It was factory-correct, unmolested, and eventually transformed into a track monster. Bilstein coilovers, FabSpeed headers, cold air intake, and a twin-plug conversion turned it into a reliable, tire-shredding thrill ride. It was everything he’d dreamed of – and then some.

The Motor That Got Away

But every car story has its heartbreak. Mark had a freshly built 3.2L motor stored at his dad’s house, wrapped in plastic and ready for action. As his father’s health declined, he began giving away tools and parts. One day, the motor vanished – gifted to a landscaper who thought it was broken. Mark’s reaction? Shock, disbelief, and a hope that it found a good home… maybe even in an airplane.

After selling the Carrera to a worthy new owner, Mark leveled up to a 2008 911 GT3 – again, triple black. It was a different animal: low-slung, razor-sharp, and brutally fast. He went through chin spoilers like pencil erasers and brake pads like pancakes, but the car never needed mods. It was perfect as-is, a track weapon that demanded respect and rewarded bravery.

Despite the GT3’s prowess, Mark’s heart still beats for the air-cooled era. His dream garage includes a 993 Carrera and a 964 Turbo – cars that have aged like fine wine and skyrocketed in value thanks to resto-mod legends like Singer. He reminisces about his uncle’s 930 Turbo and the visceral thrill of turbo lag, comparing it to riding in a 993 Twin Turbo: mind-blowingly fast and unforgettable.

Legacy, Community, and the Porsche Brotherhood

Mark’s story is more than a spec sheet – it’s a tribute to family, community, and the enduring allure of Porsche. From the Beltsville Shell to PCA meetups, from GTIs to GT3s, his journey reflects the evolution of a true enthusiast. And whether it’s a slant-nose 914 or a Cayman that finally got it right, it all comes back to the joy of driving and the stories we share.

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Car Masters Season 3 – Cash is King!

Reviews

Eric M

August 19, 2021

There are a very few shows anymore that can be off-the-air for a year or more and still get me revved up to dive back into a full season and binge immediately. Car Masters is definitely in my Top-5 RUSToration shows; and because of COVID I’d admittedly given up on it ever coming back and I was pleasantly surprised when it popped on my Netflix homepage with the red New Episodes banner.

Check out our other Car Masters Reviews...

Season 1	Season 2	Season 3	Season 4	Season 5	Season 6
VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE CAR MASTERS BUILDS!

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Unlike other shows of this genre, Car Masters is rare in that it’s a show that I can share my review time with my wife without much complaint. She approves of the petrol-head lifestyle but isn’t always engaged at the same nerdy level the rest of us are, especially me. I credit her willingness to watch to the cast/chemistry of the Gotham Garage team, which we’ve talked about in our two previous reviews (see also: Car Masters Season 1, Season 2, +Season 4).

Out of the gate, you could tell that the team was trying to change the formula of the show; wanting to focus on “high-end customers and custom builds” (aka “Cash Builds”); And as my wife quickly pointed out after two failed attempts, “I like the fact that they’re not covering up these bad projects; no excuses, they cut their losses and move on” – within those first couple episodes it definitely cements the fact that Gotham Garage isn’t like other teams; straightforward no-nonsense and much of that is because of owner Mark Towle and his vision of what custom cars should be.

Falling back on “what worked” in previous seasons, the team pursued more “Upgrade and Trade” projects where creativity wouldn’t be stifled or as Mark puts it “I hate lists” – referring specifically to an El Camino #restomod project Shawn setup – where he was asked to build a car “from a catalog” rather than using his artistic talents. After an unbearable amount of scope creep; the project was turned away without too much drama, incomplete.

As the team got back into their groove modding cars and building up to their “6 figure pay day” many of the builds (see slide show below) featured repetitive choices in parts. One of them in particular my wife commented “are they going to use that cartoonish stack again?” – referring to the stacked intake + “roots blower” (supercharger) & cowl that you’d see on many #oldskool dragsters.

I have to agree with her, it’s cool for certain builds… but after seeing it 3 times, it does seem a bit too HotWheels-like.

Low-rider Tribute, '64 Impala
The Hot-Tub Time Machine, built for a unique motel venue in Joshua Tree, CA
The Fighter Jet / Bomber Prius
The Fighter Jet / Bomber Prius
1940 Ford Woody "Tiki Hot Rod"
Delahaye clone based on '32 Ford Coupe
Delahaye clone based on '32 Ford Coupe
Mercedes LS-powered Drift Car
Adams Motorsports Park - where the Mercedes was tested; and I've driven this track! Woot!

A big difference from previous seasons of Car Masters was the change in focus with respect to who was conducting the narrative. Generally it would bounce between Mark and Shawn with “Office-like” asides where they explain what’s happening and what’s next with the project. In this season, Constance, Tony and Caveman were included in the monologues – and with two shops to work out of – were given creative control over their own projects; with some direction from Mark, of course!

The quality of the builds from Gotham Garage is always top-notch; but in the 8 episode season there were 2 builds that were truly compelling. Those are the “Fire Bike” (above) which Tony built for his uncle; and Caveman’s “Short Bus” build (below). We don’t want to spoil it for you, but they are by far the best and the stories behind them are touching.

Just before Season-3 wraps up, still frustrated by the arguments surrounding “high-end builds” Mark decides he needs to stretch his creative wings and build something truly from his own vision, “a car I’ve been designing for over 20 years” he claims. Almost stubbornly engrossed in the idea that “if you build it … they will come”; this custom build is justified with the rationale that it will really put Gotham “on the map” and people will open their wallets at auction to the tune of $250-300k.

We didn’t take issue with the principle, but more so with the execution. The design itself, as my wife put it “seems dated, and juvenile” – and as a petrol-head, I was disappointed that Mark went to the “C4 Corvette” donor list yet again. He’s used that chassis as the jumping off point for many custom builds. I didn’t mind it with the Speed Racer movie car (as seen at the Peterson Museum) or the Splittin’ Image Hotwheels car from Season-1, and others… but this particular design, which takes some cues from the Bugatti Veyron looks like a mid-engine sports car – albeit exaggerated – it should have been built on a mid-engine platform. A Porsche Boxster perhaps?

Mark specifically sought out a 1993 Corvette (C4) ZR-1, the most expensive and hard to find used C4. For something this risky, I can understand falling back on what you know and it saves time to start with a motor that makes slightly over 400hp. At the cost of $20k+ for the base car, a Boxster still has my vote. All that aside, the build quickly escalates into not just the car, but a paired Hyabusa motorcycle. Ok… Bike + Car = $250k, maybe!

The 600# Gorilla… Halfway through the season, you start to realize that the majority of Car Masters Season-3 was filmed “in the before times” – on the heals of Season-2 well before COVID brought everything to a halt. Finishing the custom C4 supercar build at the start of lockdown forced the team to hold their own virtual auction via Zoom, instead of taking the pair of vehicles to Mecum, Barrett Jackson, or some other live auction that would have been in the late-winter of 2020. With a poor showing and unable to meet the reserve Mark had set out, he decided to conclude the auction without sale. The look on the team members faces when Mark drew his line in the sand, was anything but scripted. As my wife exclaimed “Constance is gonna run over an slap him!; she’s pissed.”

Toward the end of the “Going… Going… Gone” episode the team is faced with some tough decisions about “what’s next” and the Season seems to end abruptly. Looking back its been nearly a year and a half since then, so the question still remains: Will there be another Season of Car Masters? We hope so.

From Nürburgring to the Classroom: How David Middleton Is Revolutionizing STEM Through Motorsports

David M

August 17, 2021

What happens when a race engineer trades the paddock for a classroom? You get Middleton Innovative Education (MIE)—a bold new initiative that’s reimagining STEM learning through the lens of motorsports. On a recent episode of the Break/Fix podcast, David L. Middleton, founder and CEO of MIE, shared his incredible journey from the Nürburgring to launching a startup aimed at empowering the next generation of engineers, technicians, and innovators.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

David’s story begins in New York City, where his childhood fascination with Porsche ignited a lifelong pursuit of automotive engineering. Despite earning a physics degree, he found himself no closer to the industry he loved. So he did what few would dare: he sold everything and moved to Germany.

There, he hustled his way into the heart of the automotive world – attending car shows, networking with industry leaders, and eventually landing a role at Bosch Engineering. His persistence paid off, leading to a dream job as a race engineer at the Nürburgring, where he worked on elite motorsports programs including the Porsche 918 and participated in endurance races like the 24 Hours of Spa and Le Mans.

Spotlight

Notes

Origin Story / Mission – How did you get a love of motorsports & cars / engineering?
How do you think MIE can help getting youth as fans of motorsports and/or into careers in motorsports? Is there a gateway into Formula SAE?
What grade levels does this apply to? K-8, High Schoolers
Females in Motorsports + STEM? How do we recruit/attract more into both? Does MIE help with this?
It’s often overlooked by most people that use cars every day, there’s a lot that goes into them from engineering to chemistry, physics, aerodynamics, thermal dynamics, even artistry (interior/exterior design) so many different aspects – the list goes on and on. What is the curriculum like? Which parts is MIE focusing on? How are simulators being used as teaching tools? Driving physics, car setup?
What types of platforms and tools are being used for the curriculum? (iRacing? F1, ACC, others?) What do you think about the future of sim and sim racing?
You consult with clients on SIM rigs? We have a lot of SIM racers in the group, what would you recommend to be competitive for someone racing for more than fun? (budget, middle of road, money no object).

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Brake fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the auto sphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrol heads 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.

So. Tonight we’re going to talk about my. Wait, did you say pie? Nope, M I E, my. Middleton Innovative Education, a new startup in the world of education looking to revolutionize the way we teach and engage students in science, technology, engineering, and math, also known as STEM.

Crew Chief Eric: And I see that we have David Middleton, CEO and founder of My, on break fix with us tonight to explain how it all works.

So welcome to the show, David.

David L. Middleton: You’re welcome. Thank you guys for having me. I’m blessed to be here.

Crew Chief Eric: We were very grateful to have one of our previous [00:01:00] guests who’s been on two episodes now of Break Fix. Phil Engels introduced us virtually and brought to our attention the idea of Mai. So first question as always.

Let’s talk about the origin story. Let’s talk about the mission. Tell us what my is all about and how it got started.

David L. Middleton: Sure. So we had other names and then somebody who was kind of counseling us, he said, how about using your initials and making a company? So it’s Middleton Innovative Education. My like pie.

And the way the mission got started is I’m by background automotive engineer. I had been working abroad many years, not only development, but in motorsports. And I got to a point where I’m looking around the paddocks. I’m looking around a lot of the meetings I’m in, and I’m wondering where are all the Americans?

And it started to bother me. And, and I talked to my wife, always wanted to give back. So what I started doing when I was abroad is I started actually reaching out to military families. And bringing them out to the track that I was at, I used to be a race engineer at the [00:02:00] Nürburgring. So I would bring out military families out there and tell them, Hey, I don’t know how long I’m going to be doing this, but bring your son, bring your daughter, experience the paddock.

And they were having good times. And then I started talking to my wife more in depth about, well, what’s the future when we either transition back to the stage or what’s the next step? So we talked about it some more. And then I reached out to a lot of my friends. I’m originally from New York city. And I have a lot of friends who were either born in the Dominican Republic or in the Caribbean and, and they’re all car guys, but I’m the only one who went on to be an engineer.

And I was asking them, what’s the disconnect? They told me, well, you’re fortunate. You had two parents who were in education. They told you, you can do whatever you want to do. They were like, our parents told us survive. So, and they said, and nobody ever told us we could do this. They said, you were the crazy guy reading magazines, telling us you do these things.

And what really hit me was one of my friend’s brothers. He told me, you know, he said, Dave, you got to understand you’re like the hope of the block. He said, every time you’re sending us pictures of the Nürburgring [00:03:00] and videos and all this, you’re giving hope to us. And I thought to myself, well, something has to change.

I said, well, what’s going on in industry right now? And I feel that. There’s a lot of young people who really love cars, but there’s a disconnect of how to turn that love into an actual career and America needs great engineers. We need great mechanics. We need great technicians using the knowledge I have, but also the fact that I started doing not only racing, but sim racing.

I said, how can I combine this in a meaningful way? And I think some of the problem with a lot of, a lot of STEM programs is they give these kids good exercises and things like that, but it doesn’t sink in. So I thought long and hard about how do I combine STEM education, motorsports, that love into a meaningful program.

Crew Chief Eric: All I got to say right now is wow. And we got a lot of stuff to unpack. So before we dive a little deeper into mine, I can see it on Brad’s face right now. We got to talk about this automotive engineer and the Nürburgring, [00:04:00] because my eyes are as big as my head right now. Automotive engineering, did you start with like, let’s say at Ford Aerospace, which was like where everybody went to in my generation or somewhere else?

Were you fortunate and went the way of, you know, McLaren through BAE or something like that? And how did you end up at the Nürburgring? So let’s, let’s unfold that a little bit.

David L. Middleton: I went a totally opposite route than anybody else. I went, I went to a really good school, studied physics. I told my advisor that I wanted to do research and development of engines.

And this came from a love I’ve had a Porsche since nine years old. I saw a commercial stuck with me. I told my dad, Hey, I want you to teach me how to drive manual because one day I’m going to own a Porsche. And he kind of stared at me cause you know, my parents are educators and no one really had a Porsche around.

And he said, okay. And he said, he’s going to pass, but I kept bugging him. So he started teaching me how to drive and then I asked how to drive manual, but this love of cars was basically self inflicted. I’m reading everything. I’m chasing [00:05:00] things down. My parents didn’t know what to do exactly. So they put me in every engineering program, summer program.

I did three years at Cornell during high school.

Crew Chief Brad: Wow.

David L. Middleton: Yeah. And I did all these programs and it led to me going to a very good university and studying physics. Well, I finished my physics degree and I’m no closer to the automotive industry. My wonderful advisor didn’t tell me that. Right. He said, Oh, you get a degree in physics and trust me, I suffered getting through physics.

But I was like, well, what do I do now? So I call up Audi and BMW and Porsche. And back in those days, you know, you had to fight to get somebody on the phone. And they said, what do you want to do, young man? I said, well, I want to do research and development of engines for your company. And they said, in America, I said, well.

If that’s not possible where they said, Germany, he said, if you want to do that, you gotta go to Germany. And I said, all right, I will. And I don’t think anybody believed me, you know, like I got a lot of pauses on the phone, like, okay, well, long story short, I started working for a startup. I’m no closer to the industry.

And I just, from one day to the next, I come [00:06:00] out of a meeting and I tell somebody I’m done. I was like, that’s it. I’m getting up and I’m moving to Germany. Within two months, I sold everything I had. I took the little money I had and I got up and I moved to the Frankfurt mines area. What I did for the next few months is I went to every single car show.

I went to the international auto show at Frankfurt. I met with people such as AC Schnitzer and Brabus and, and I was very fortunate. I hustled really hard, but it got to a point where people were saying, Hey, well, you’re very well educated, but, uh, you do not know what it takes to work in Germany. That was a shock.

Right. Because I paid a lot of money for this great education. And here I am, my education doesn’t really mean anything to them because they’ve got their own universities. They got their own ways of doing stuff. And I remember talking to the AC snitcher guys and they said, do you realize how many engineers we have on staff?

He said, we’re such a small team, man. Like my team is six. And you want to be here? And I said, yes, I do. I want to be there. And they were kind of taken aback at this [00:07:00] brash American and not so much that I was brash, but for the point of they didn’t find a lot of Americans who would come over with this attitude of I’m going to get in.

I’m going to be here. I want to learn from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Persistence. Persistence.

David L. Middleton: Yeah. So that was refreshing. So they pointed me in, in, in some directions. It got to a point where I had to take on other jobs to make sure I stayed alive. Of what I knew about Germans and started learning the language, I said, All right, if I’m trying to get in here and study some more, if I don’t have ones and twos, which is a German A and B, then I’m going to sit down, HR department, and they’re going to say to me, Ah, Herr Middleton, I see that you want to work for Porsche.

But you did not get ones and twos, you know, like, you know, why, if you really want to be here, why did you not do well enough and to an American? We’re like, well, look, I’m self supported. I had to learn the language. There’s a lot of things I had to go through, but to a German, it’s a numbers game. It’s like, well, if you really want it.

You will get it. So I said, let me be smart here. I found a good program in [00:08:00] South Carolina, connected to BMW. I got in and I got another degree and my parents were like, what, what is this guy thinking about? Well, while I was doing that, I had an internship or I got a call from a good advisor this time. And he told me, Hey, there’s an internship program in Esslingen.

You should do it. We think it’d be great for your career. I was actually on the tennis court. They called me off. I go down to the office. Sweaty and smelly and there’s these two Germans sitting there and they start talking to me in German and they were surprised at how good my German was and the guy answers me and says, Hey, look, here’s someone we want for this program because we can’t find Americans who go over and want to do this program without going into too much detail.

I do this program and the things that I did in this program. I got to go on Mercedes test track. I got to go to Audi’s factory where they make the R8. I got to go to Vizac and get on the test track. A lot of students were able to do this too. Thank you. But we had some American guys and we’re like overslept some of these events.

And I tried to explain to them. I said, you could buy 10 cup cars [00:09:00] and you may never, ever get to Vizac. Like, you don’t understand, like that’s something special, man. You need to appreciate it. But I was totally locked in. I finished my schooling. I made the right connections. I started applying for OEMs, Porsche, Mercedes, BMW, and I knew a couple of Germans in America, and they said, well, have you considered Bosch?

And I said, um, yeah, a little bit. So I said, no, not, not the sister, not the big sister company. There’s a daughter company, Bosch Engineering. They do ECU development. They do engine develop. That’s where the motorsports department is. And after several interviews and fighting to knock the door in a little bit and some connections, yeah, I became an engineer there.

Wow. So that’s how I got to Germany. Very, I guess, unusual. I didn’t go from Michigan to Germany. I went in directly as a German engineer. I had a German contract. I ended up getting a German Lebenslauf, which is like basically the work permit. I had to, of course, make a way, but, but yeah, I went straight in because [00:10:00] My thinking was, if I had worked for BMW in North America and got settled in, I would have wanted to go over, right?

But once I got settled and if I had kids or if I got married, you know, it’s just like a lot harder to transition. But this way I said, Hey, I’m just going over. Luckily, the woman I married, she, she also was interested in going to Germany. She had lived there previously too, and she already had things set up.

So we both went over and yeah, I worked for Bosch engineering. And while I’m working there. I had a French intern and the intern was, uh, very nice to me and we started talking and he said, Hey, I see you got a big interest in cars because I used to have stacks of magazines, you know, and I used to have actually F1 tracks, like pasted to my desk, you know, because the group I was in, there weren’t a lot of car guys in my particular group, but the surrounding groups like Aston Martin.

It’s

Crew Chief Eric: funny how that always happens, right? You get into these industries. That are making products for let’s say a consumer group like us petrol heads, and they have no love towards what it is that they’re [00:11:00] doing and I mean that in a in a philosophical way, not necessarily they probably nerd out on what they do and they love it, but it’s like, yeah, I’m not a car guy, but I do car things.

I know a lot of people like that. I’m like, My mind, I’m like, this does not compute. This does not make any sense at all. Do what you love. Right. But I guess we’re not always able to do exactly that, but it sounds like you are. So please continue.

David L. Middleton: Yeah. It kind of blew my mind because the surrounding groups, I worked for JLR and the surrounding groups, the Ferrari group, the Aston Martin group, the McLaren group, the Porsche group.

I mean, these guys are like petrol heads, right? And I’ll give you an example. Well, we developed the 918 with Porsche and they brought out the 918, I think about a year before it launched. And it was just sitting out there, man. My eyes are as big as saucers. Cause we had to walk past the canteen and sitting there and Porsche execs were there.

So I go into my group, man, 918 is there like, let’s go see it. And a couple of guys were like, eh, they like shrugged their shoulders.

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

David L. Middleton: And that’s not me, man. I think I was, I was told anything that came through the group. [00:12:00] We had a secret garage that had, I mean, tons of things from manufacturers, secret development.

I mean, we had Bugattis that were torn apart. Like it was just, it was basically everything I would ever dreamed of at a company. But I have this French engineer and he goes, why aren’t you in the carding group? I was like, I didn’t even know it existed. Come out. So I came out and I was thinking to myself, all right, I mean, I should be okay.

I know how to drive. Well, I learned very quickly. I didn’t know how to drive because these guys have been doing it and girls have been doing it since 10, 11, 12. And through that. I stayed and I fought with them. And when I, when I started the carding group, I think I was outside of the top 60 by the time I finished, I was within the top 15.

And from there I made connections. And then people were like, Hey, we do track days, started doing track days. Hey, we go to the Nurburgring, started visiting the Nurburgring. And when I got to the Nurburgring, I knew of the Nurburgring, but I didn’t really know the Nurburgring as you guys can attest to. I knew of it, but I get there and the atmosphere is just, there’s nothing like that on the [00:13:00] planet, especially if you’re a motorsports person.

So I said, all right, I want some experience. So I started walking up, down the garage and saying, Hey, you know, in German course. I’m an engineer. I work for Bosch and I want to leverage whatever little I know and be a race engineer. A lot of the teams were shocked that I spoke German because they asked me in German, where are you from?

And I’d say USA and they’d be like, what? They’re like, you’re not from Cameroon. You’re not from Nigeria. Like, no, I’m from the USA, you know, we can actually speak other languages. But I eventually got in with a team and that started my motorsports career. And that was an eye opener. I did three years in the VLN series.

I did three years as a, uh, race engineer for the 24 hours.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow.

David L. Middleton: And that led to other stuff. I mean, I attended 24 hours of spa. I attended Le Mans. I got to know a guy. He was the director of composites for Porsche LMP1. And we became friends and we met at Lamont. So if you can imagine, I’m going through all this and I’m having the time of my life and to kind of [00:14:00] give that up and come back to America, I really had to have a vision of like, man, I really want to give back to America because I’m going to be honest with you, man.

I was very happy, you know, like a weekend, somebody could call me and say, hey, come down to Imola. Let’s do this. Or Hey, drive this. Or Hey, I got, I bought this new Lotus. Can you help me shake it down? I mean, I was having the time of my life, but at the end of the day, I said, well, what do I want to do? Do I just want to gain all this knowledge and just stay out here and, and then nothing changes.

But I felt my path, it was a very long bridge from getting A to B. And there are young men and young women out there who love this industry, who don’t know how to get into it. And I wanted to change that from the knowledge I’ve learned from the contacts I’ve made. I want to make sure that their path is not so long and they can say, well, look, I love this.

This is what I want to do. How do I do this? I live in Georgia. Lanier Technical is near and they’ve got a great motorsports program. From what I’ve heard, I’ve met so many kids here who don’t even know that exist. What’s the disconnect? What’s the problem? How can I solve it? Working over there and being over there that led to the Nürburgring, which just led to a [00:15:00] baptism in motorsports that I cannot explain.

And it was tough. And the team spoke 90 percent German. But, but I made it through and I fought with those guys and I think they, they liked the fact that I wouldn’t give up and that I wanted to be there and they said this guy could do whatever he wants, you know, but here he is on his weekends, speaking of foreign language, hanging out with us, learning German culture, drinking their beer, sitting with the mechanics, having them explain stuff to me and the way they did it because it was foreign to me, me explaining what I’m seeing, learning from other people.

And yeah, man, the Nürburgring is, it’s hard to put it in words, but I’ll just say that if you ever have the chance to go, you should. And that changed my dad’s mind on motorsports. He had no clue about it. He couldn’t understand my passion, but when I took him to the Nürburgring, I remember him sitting there and just taking it all in.

And he comes to me and he goes, Hey, I’m so sorry that if I knew this existed, I would have put you in carding. I would have put you in racing. I would have done something. He said, but I had no clue. He said, I, he said, I’m at this. And this is like, feels like the Mecca of motorsports. And he said, everybody’s friendly.

Everybody’s [00:16:00] talking. People are, people don’t care where I’m from. He said, I just, I feel at home here. And he said, I wish I knew that this existed before.

Crew Chief Eric: Beauty of motorsport. And if I haven’t said it a hundred times already in this episode of people, I’m sure people are taking shots as they’re listening.

I’m going to say it again. Wow. And I think I’ve just lived out vicariously all of my childhood fantasies in the last 15 minutes that you’ve told that story. Absolutely amazing. I mean, absolutely astounding the things you talk about. So I got to ask some questions. I think Brad’s got a couple as well. So let’s rewind a little bit and go back.

Cause you said one day I’m going to drive a Porsche or I’m going to own a Porsche. So what was The first car you drove or first car you had, was it stateside? And what did you get when you went to Germany? Let’s start there before I continue kind of pulling this thread a little bit.

David L. Middleton: Sure. The first car I had was a 19, I think it was a 1986 or 1985 Volkswagen GTI.

Crew Chief Eric: Mk2 baby. All right.

David L. Middleton: Everybody starts with a Volkswagen.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t know how that happens on this show. It just does, [00:17:00] you know.

David L. Middleton: If you want to hear kind of a crazy story, there was some upperclassmen and they had this car wasn’t getting used. They passed it down to freshmen named, I’ll never forget Dennis.

Dennis didn’t use this car, sat there for a year and I kept saying, Dennis, sell me the car. Dennis, sell me the car. Well, he finally sells it to me for a dollar, right? I go to the car. And it’s got a club on it. And I said, Dennis, where’s the key? He didn’t know. Now, now mind you, we’re college, we’re not wealthy.

And then I call a locksmith. The guy tells me it was going to be what, 150, 200 to get the club off. We ended up stealing liquid nitrogen,

Crew Chief Eric: freezing it off

David L. Middleton: out of the science lab and freezing it late at night, covering the steering wheel with a, you know, with a towel. Cause someone suggested like sawing the steering wheel.

I said, heck no. So we stole liquid nitrogen. So if anybody was missing liquid nitrogen back then, I’m sorry. We froze the lock, we broke it, and we got it off. But we didn’t think because, you know, it’s like five, six black guys late at night, freezing liquid nitrogen, you know, like luckily the cops didn’t come because that probably the optics didn’t look so good.[00:18:00]

But yeah, that was my first car and I, I drove that thing. And drove it and drove it. And then one of the cylinders eventually went two years later. So

Crew Chief Eric: eight valve or 16 valve.

David L. Middleton: Mine was 16 valve.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re very nice. And so when you got to Germany, what did you get? Cause over there you have a larger, let’s call it smorgasbord of things you can choose from that we don’t get, you know, all the fun stuff.

David L. Middleton: Yes. I got a manual E90. Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: nice.

David L. Middleton: That’s what I got. And then I got a E36 track car that was prepared by a guy who was the chief Audi mechanic for years. And he actually did the Nürburgring.

Crew Chief Eric: That, that’s like an oxymoron there. Chief Audi mechanic and he’s got a BMW. How does that work? Oh man,

David L. Middleton: this guy used to build Minis, BMWs, all these things and, and he used to keep them in his garage and then sell them.

Within a month, he’d sell them. So that was my first track car, the E36.

Crew Chief Eric: Did you end up with a Porsche?

David L. Middleton: I did.

Crew Chief Eric: Was there a first one or is there only one?

David L. Middleton: There’s only been one. Okay. The second one’s going to be coming soon. Hopefully. Uh, 997 Gen 2 [00:19:00] 2011 white. I actually got PDK, but I left foot brake the whole time and drove it like a Formula One car.

Crew Chief Eric: excellent. My last question before we transition and continue talking about what you’re doing now and motorsport community is since you were on the ring. So often, did you get to meet or interact with Sabine Schmidt?

David L. Middleton: You just stole my question. So

Crew Chief Brad: we inquire your minds want to know though.

David L. Middleton: Frigidelli was maybe 15, 16 garages away from us.

I did meet her. I used to go in and out of her garage a lot. And then RSR. If you ever heard of RSR Nurburgring, well, they run a lot of drivers, so I got to know their drivers. They know Sabine, so we’d be at stuff and we’d cross paths. So I didn’t have like a deep, deep conversation with her, but she definitely knew who I was.

I was always hanging out in the garage, and there’s actually an American over there who I think still does the VLN series named John, who was driving Porsches at one time, and Sabine was his driver for a couple of the VLNs, so yes. I did. Never got her to take me out on [00:20:00] the ring. That would have been awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: I know, right? But she would have only done it in a Ford Transit van though, you know?

David L. Middleton: Hey, whatever. It could be a shopping cart, you know? It’s always fun.

Crew Chief Eric: Speaking of transit vans, you ever take the ring taxi?

David L. Middleton: I have not. I have not. Are they as

Crew Chief Eric: nuts as they look on the videos?

David L. Middleton: They are. Yes, they are. They absolutely are.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. So let’s get serious for a moment.

Crew Chief Brad: So getting involved, why don’t you tell us about, uh, the, the, the, my program. Yeah. How you developed it.

David L. Middleton: I started sim racing about 10, 11 years ago, introduced by all these crazy French guys. They invited me over to their house and every single one of them had a simulator.

You know, the foldable play seat with a Logitech and they asked me if I had one. Are they like, do you SIM? Do you, do you play racing games? I said, yeah, I play Gran Turismo. And they’re like, what do you use? I said, my controller. And they kind of laughed me, you know, out of the room. And they were like, why don’t you have a simulator?

And I was like, I don’t even really know what one of those are. I sat down and I was amazed. I was like, this is real driving. Like this is, this is unbelievable. Well, it didn’t take long before [00:21:00] I told my wife, like, Hey, I would like to buy a simulator. I actually stepped up. I didn’t get Logitech. I actually went to Thrustmaster and back then Thrustmaster was quite expensive, but I started simming wanted to be better than them, or I wanted to be comparable.

And a lot of these guys were like really super quick, you know, for being engineers. They they’re, they’re quite quick. And some of them even did amateur racing. So I got the simulator and the more I’m driving it, the more I saw that there’s applications to it. I would get people who say, I don’t know how to set up a car.

How do I do that? I’m in SIM, or I don’t know what the, Brad’s pointing at himself. Or what effect does ride height have? How do I find the rear, you know, rear wing angle? And how does that affect the tire temperatures? And there was a lot of information on forums, but I realized like, man, there is some principles that can be applied to learning and if young kids are already racing or they’re doing video games, this is a great way to get them into the industry and see that the math and science that [00:22:00] they’re learning in school can actually be applied in the real world.

And in sim, when we made the decision that I wasn’t going to go back into industry and I just started full time and I started writing out a curriculum. I’ve written the whole STEM curriculum. I’ve, I’ve used my experience in motorsports. My experience in sim racing, then also my experience in industry to make a, just a curriculum that gels together.

So I have it very tailored, but also with the, with the mindset that you’re going to get some kids. We don’t know anything about racing, anything about driving. So it’s video based. You’re also getting tested, but everything you do is applied to your, your SIM exercises and just to give it in more in depth, if you don’t mind.

So what we were pitching and we were first of all, starting off with schools and what we were trying to get schools to do were to bring in a minimum of four simulators and per simulator, there’d be. Three to five kids, but every kid has a specific role. So Brad, I don’t know if you like arrow, you’re saying that I don’t know about the [00:23:00] theoretical grip, theoretical grip.

All right. But maybe, maybe you don’t, maybe you like arrow. Maybe you don’t. Right. But you would have a job, whether it’s aerodynamics, whether it’s the suspension engineer, whether it’s the race engineer. And we also added management because I want the kids to understand that racing doesn’t just happen in a vacuum, right?

You need somebody to pay the bills. You need sponsorship. So there is one person who by the end of these 18 weeks has to write a fictional paper. on funding and say, this is what we did. Good. This is where we need help at and pick companies and write whether it’s a work of fiction, but it has to sound professional and that’s her role.

And the person who’s responsible for that, that’s his or her job throughout the season, but they also do the same exercises. They also do some of the tuning and everything. So you function together as a race team. You will compete against your other fellow classmates. As teams and in between these 18 weeks, I have like a practice race one practice race to practice [00:24:00] race three and then at the end of the 18th is the final race, which you hopefully in theory, you know, race for scholarships.

That’s what we’re trying to do. So not only do you have your job and your role of what you have to tune, when you do your sim exercises together as a group, you’ve got to function as a team. And I think that’s a way to build communication. That’s a way to build collaboration, but also it’s a way for students to understand responsibility.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And, you know, there’s a lot to what you’re talking about there that I think is often overlooked. You’ve got chemistry, you’ve got physics, you’ve got engineering, you’ve got aerodynamics, thermal dynamics, you even got artistry when it comes to design interior exterior. And to your point, when you bring motorsport into the equation, it gets easy.

astronomically more complicated, right? Because you have the competition factory of the management factor, the budget, the financing, the sponsorship, all of that. So I think what you’re doing, you know, even on a, on a smaller scale to represent the real world is, is great. And it gives these kids what I think is lacking in school sometimes, which is the real world aspect to all of [00:25:00] it.

Let’s say Brad went through it in his background in finance. You go through these accounting classes and you’re like. These use cases are nothing like they are when I am going to end up in the real world, right? It’s like, what does this have to do with anything? So to your point, you’re bringing it all together and really grasping that.

I guess what we used to call that Athenian mentality to education, which is to broader reaching and fuller encompassing of all the different aspects of something, an object, whatever it is that you’re learning or, or that discipline to make you more well rounded as a student. Right? So I really applaud you for that.

So how are you relating all of this or making it make sense? Are you keeping it at a foundational level so that at least the principles are absorbed?

David L. Middleton: So first of all, I guess the program right now is tailored towards high school students. I’m keeping him at a introductory level, but I’m applying things from the real world and then showing them how it works in sim.

So I’ll give you an example. Thermodynamics. I had a carding kid tell me that he sucks at math. And [00:26:00] I said, I said, yeah, James, why would you say that? Well, because you know, it’s just hard and I don’t like it. And I said, James, you do carding, right? What do you do when the temperature is hot to your tires?

Well, I let some of the air out. I said, why? Well, because they overheat and the tires don’t feel, you know, if they overheat and you lose grip. I said, what do you do when it’s cold out? He said, I put more air in. I said, James, it’s basic thermodynamics, right? I said, pressure, volume, temperature, and the relation.

And how I do that in my with my is that I teach them that principle, the relationship between pressure, volume, temperature. I teach them the formula. I show, you know, P1 over P2 equals T1 over T2 and volume. I show them all that. They actually have to do an example where they have to figure out the values.

When it comes to the SIM side, what I do for their SIM task is I take them to Texas Motor Speedway. in July. I give them a certain set of tire pressures and I tell them to do five laps. Texas, July, temperatures go through the roof. So here they see it applied. And I say, okay, we’re gonna go back to Texas Motor [00:27:00] Speedway in December, do the same thing, give ’em the same exact pressures, do five, eight laps, and they’ll see that the temperature doesn’t come out.

Now you’ve learned the relationship between pressure, volume, and temperature, and you’ve seen it all right, we’re gonna go back to Texas. I’m gonna give you uneven pressures ’cause it’s an oval and, and s slammed it. Oval. What do you think the, the pressures are gonna be? And, and so. That’s what I do. I do things like that.

So it’s

Crew Chief Eric: applied physics and applied thermodynamics and that it’s, and that’s good applied

David L. Middleton: thermodynamics.

Crew Chief Eric: I guess I have to ask the question on the behalf of everybody else, what platform are you on? Are you using iRacing for this or something else?

David L. Middleton: I’m using something else. Eventually, we’d like to make a iRacing platform, but as we all know from using iRacing, what I’m trying to do is get this out to, to the general public.

All right. There’s a lot of carding kids. They’re using iRacing. That’s great. I bring this to certain areas. And the kids could do our program. And then I’m like, Hey, you like the program so much go home and practice. Well, let’s see. Now you’re telling somebody’s parent, please let my son or daughter buy a gaming computer.

A rig and all this. [00:28:00] And I picked a game that is cross platformed on purpose. It’s not exactly, I don’t think it’s the best game dynamically, but it fits the bill for several reasons. So what I’m using is Project Cars 2 currently. Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay.

David L. Middleton: And what I like about Project Cars 2, well, it’s on PC, Xbox, PlayStation.

Right now, the price is very cheap. You’re doing it in school, you already got a PlayStation or Xbox at home. I can convince your parents to buy a 100 wheel, you put it on your desk, plug it into your PlayStation, go practice. And I can’t do that with iRacing. The other thing I like about Project Cars 2 is that the graphic user interface is easier to understand than iRacing.

No offense, iRacing, but yeah, I wish that would change. Another thing, weather in the real world, right? I was, I was at VIR over the weekend. We had a half dry, half wet session. I can’t really do that in iRacing. So I had to find a platform that could do all these things. And What I’m trying to do with the program is not just have one year, I’m trying to have four years consecutively.

And [00:29:00] every year you’re going to do a different challenge. Year one, we may do GT4. Year two, maybe GT3 with a weather change. Year three might be Indy or LMP1. But year four, I’m saving for Formula One because I want kids to come back. And, and what’s great about it is if you were the suspension engineer and you don’t like it, it’s not for me.

I want to be the guy who’s the race engineer. I want to do something different. Well, you have the option to change every year, but if you love suspensions and you say, Hey, I love this. I can’t wait to, to work on a suspension and GT four to GT three or LMP one to GT three, see what the difference is. You can say, I opt to stay in my role.

So yeah, that’s one of the reasons that I decided to use Project Cars 2. But, going forward, I am going to have to develop something for iRacing, because I have a ton of cart parents and a ton of cart kids asking me. And then also, as you guys know, ACC is really making a big splash. It’s also a great game.

And a set of Corsa 2 is coming out soon. So hopefully those guys will get it right, that’s the goal, but right now it’s Project [00:30:00] Cars 2 only, and I think it’s just the best balance.

Crew Chief Eric: And I would agree with you, because I have used Project Cars 2 and I do like it, I’m one of few in our VRL that does, and you know, it was available for free for a while there, so it made it even more palatable.

The one thing I think is interesting that that’s the choice you made is if you are a gamer, like, you know, Brad and I am, even though he claims he’s not you, if you look at its lineage, there’s like certain families of racing games that they’ve all kind of stemmed from. So you’ve got Forza, which was built from the ground up.

You’ve got Gran Turismo. That’s always been its own thing. I racing came out or whatever, but then there was this pocket of games that came out of the SIM bin. Lineage, right. Where you had like things like GTR, GTR two, and, um, similar to like Toka and all those all came out of that family tree and project cars is in a similar vein now.

Now they’re owned by code masters. Right. So it’s all part of that. That bigger

David L. Middleton: happen.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Well, I mean, and that’s the other, that’s the other big. family, right? As if you’re part of [00:31:00] the code masters, ego engine and all those physics engines that they developed and all that kind of stuff. But what I find interesting about the choice of projects cars to is yes, it’s a little older, but it does have some redeeming features in it.

Like you said, variable weather conditions. It also has a race manager. Feature and race engineer feature in there where you can interact with the race engineer and he’ll tell you things about the car as you’re driving it. You can do all these changes back and forth. So I think that’s kind of cool. I want to get your feelings on project cars three and why not pursue that or maybe something like Forza, which has a huge amount of tunability in its physics engine.

David L. Middleton: You’re going to get me in trouble with the project cars three question.

Crew Chief Eric: I got to ask, I sunk money into it as well. So.

Crew Chief Brad: I did too. I

Crew Chief Eric: like it. I’m just going to say straight up. I wrote an article, you know, singing its praises. I think it has a lot of potential. They continue to update it. It has been getting better since launch full disclaimer.

David L. Middleton: Yeah. Project cars three, the way they were developing it, what [00:32:00] they promised and what got delivered was kind of a turnoff to me, the fact that tire wear. Wasn’t an option. I had to pick a game where I could feel that there was some longevity and I just didn’t feel that project three matched up to how my program worked.

I wanted it to trust me. I really wanted it to. In fact, we had a contact, uh, that we were trying to, to get project cars to come on board, especially. That it didn’t really sell well in America. And I said, Hey, this is a way to get your product out. And the guy was all for it. But the guy who, who was actually all for it, he ended up leaving the company.

Uh, as far as Forza, I think it’s a matter of, I started down the project cars to road and I’m also a PlayStation guy. So I hope that’ll do it. That’ll do it. I’ve had PlayStation 2, 3, 4, and getting 5 eventually. Forza was, I would have to go out and buy an Xbox I had my PlayStation hanging around here. I had Project Cars 1 on PlayStation.

That’s one of the reasons.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, for many of us, we started with Gran Turismo. I mean, for the younger, some of us started with like, you know, [00:33:00] RC Pro Am and Rad Racer and Pole Position and stuff like that. You know, I’m dating myself now. You know, for those of us that still… It’s the godfather of a lot of these, but on the same token, I can’t wait 10 years for the next version of Gran Turismo to come out.

Now with Forza 8, Forza Motorsport being delayed yet again, I’m like, ah, whatever, you know, I’m not rushing to get a Series X either. I think it’s interesting the choices you made. I understand why, especially having played, and I’ve played so many racing video games. Not even funny at this point, but I will say this about Project Cars 3 and to your point about what they promised and what they delivered, I think because it was in the auspices of the merger between Codemasters and, uh,

David L. Middleton: thank

Crew Chief Eric: you, Slightly Mad Studios, that what we ended up with was Grid.

With the madness engine in it, which is not necessarily a bad compromise. We got all the awesome UI from Codemasters and the soundtrack and the graphics. It needs some refinement. That’s for sure. But we’ll, we’ll save that for another day.

David L. Middleton: Another thing too, is there’s very few [00:34:00] racing games that are on PC, Xbox.

That’s true. Project Cars is one of them. Assetto Corsa is the other. That’s about it, you know? I mean, I like Gran Turismo. Actually, they do some great things. I don’t particularly always love the racing in Gran Turismo. But when you get your licenses, how they show you like the video of how to do it and all this.

I mean, Gran Turismo could be a great learning tool. But it’s not on the Xbox. So you got all these young people who like the Xbox and they’re not going to go out of their way. To get grant charisma when they got four. So I had to find the balance and that’s really what it came to. It was like trying to find the perfect balance.

I knew I couldn’t satisfy everybody, but that’s also why down the road, we’re going to have more specialized, you know, it doesn’t take much to change. A few things that make it specifically for one game, it just takes,

Crew Chief Eric: and in your case, this allows you to also do this offline as well, or call it local LAN party, like in our old days, right.

Versus iRacing, you have to be connected to the servers and make it work and all that kind of fun stuff. So going back to that episode we did last year with Jericho from [00:35:00] Twitch, who some of you may know as Tucker, you know, he’s into the gaming world. He’s, he’s at the. front end of Twitch when it was, you know, not as popular it is today and things like that, he’s also the host of Amazon’s chasing the crown, you know, things of that nature.

So we had him on and we talked about, you know, simulators and the future and, you know, the, the difference between the fake and the real, right. That’s what we always get into, especially with the racist. I was like, man, this game is so fake. And so I wonder what you’ve come across in building your curriculum to get around that, or things that you just.

Straight up say, you know what? This is a shortcoming. The physics engines can’t do it. And this is how we have to work around it. Or how do you teach to that in your plan?

David L. Middleton: I do tell the kids, this is how it works in reality. And in the same world, sometimes things work a little bit different. I preface it by saying it’s not exactly one to one.

I let them know that simulation is a great tool. I think it’s a fantastic tool, but nothing beats being in a seat, right? No, I don’t care. What kind of level D Box, [00:36:00] SimCraft, I don’t care what you got in your house, as great as it is, and I’ve driven most of this stuff, nothing beats the real world in real world physics.

You know, I know a lot of companies say we have real world physics, we have this, but at the end of the day, nothing beats seat time. So you have to understand what this is. This is a tool to prepare you for the future. What I’m doing is I’m trying to give exposure to what’s out there. I want you to go. I want you to get trained properly.

I want you to, whether it’s a degree, whether it’s an apprenticeship, whether whatever, but I want you to remember the math and science and the tools that I taught you and to put that towards your future. So that’s kind of how I get around it.

Crew Chief Eric: You mentioned that this is geared towards high schoolers and the world having been kind of turned upside down in the last, let’s call it 18 months, you know, with COVID and everything like that, were you guys initially doing this in person, you know, at a school and then when virtual, was it always CBT based or, you know, something like that.

Is it more like a work study? Is this [00:37:00] done in conjunction with their normal schedule, or is it part of their everyday schedule at that particular school that you’re partnering with?

David L. Middleton: Well, the path we were going down was after school program in person. We wanted to get it part of a curriculum for CTE, career technical engineering or career technical experience.

Sorry, I can’t remember exactly which one it is. So we had many talks. about that in California, but it was in person. And then, you know, we’re in the midst of raising money in COVID. So if you can imagine how tough that was, because one of the things on our agenda was a standalone center. Centers like Kids That Code and things like that, Code Ninjas, where They have these standalone centers.

And I thought, well, this is a great thing. Instead of your kid coming and doing rock climbing or something else, we were looking at a space in California and we had started the process of raising money and of getting partners. And I won’t go into who we had on board, but once COVID hit, you know, everybody just pulled back.

So then I said, okay, the goal is still to have it in person. But in the meantime, How can I make it where kids [00:38:00] who are homeschooled or kids who cannot go into the classroom can just log on and do their exercises. So there’s been a little bit of a shift because one of one of the big things is communication.

And I know that virtually you can communicate, you know, you can send me emails and we could do this. And this is great, but there’s nothing like being in person and working on a car together. Right?

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely.

David L. Middleton: Right. Brad can tell me, Hey, I’ve been working on this and show me the. See me join, show me whatever.

And I’m like, Oh yeah, you should do that. Brad or Brad can give me advice. But until he has me a wrench and if I’m not torquing it right, he’s like, Hey Dave, that’s not how you do it. You know, there’s a whole different aspect. Hopefully the in person will return.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s nothing like watching Brad strip a bolt and then just waiting for all the expletives to come out.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I’m usually the one handing Eric the wrench.

Crew Chief Eric: But so it kind of, it makes me wonder, do you have a plan to set this up in such a way that it’s a transition from what they’ve been working on into maybe something like formula SAE, which is something available to [00:39:00] college students?

David L. Middleton: It’s funny that you mentioned that.

I think there is a lot of potential for my program. I’m very familiar with Formula SAE. It would be great to work with them if they wanted to work with me, but I also think this can be almost a standalone thing. One of the downsides, if any of you guys have ever done Formula SAE, you want to do it, you come into it, you’re six foot three.

You’re like, I want to drive. And they look at you say, Hey, buddy, grab a torch over there. Right? Or you’re a freshman and, and you want to do something and you want to do maybe the engine mapping. And they’re like, yeah, you can do that year three. So having it virtually shortcuts, all that. And guess what?

Everybody has to drive, right? That’s just part of my program. Everybody has to drive, whether it’s in exercises. Whether it’s for everybody has to drive and then the cause level where I don’t need more than three kids per simulator. You know, I can have it set up like Gran Turismo does their finals where you do a enduro and everybody has to drive, you know, so you’re not just mastering your special area.

You have to get in the car and we’ve got to make a car that’s going to [00:40:00] work balanced between the three of us. So yeah, I do think there’s stuff. It’s just right now I’ve been focusing so much on high school. Because by the time you get to college, sometimes your mind’s set up, you have the idea of, I know what I want to do, I got college, I’m going here, and then maybe you get your degree and you change your mind, but I want to reach minds early, and in fact I want to go younger, like I’d love to start in the junior high level, so they’re already thinking about it, and that’s why I’m focusing on high school, nothing against college students, But to get a liberal arts person, I’m going to major in history and they’ll be like, Hey, hi, have you considered being an engineer or a technician?

They’re like, well, not really, you know, and I don’t know, I don’t know if my program would change their mind, but I definitely think, and I would love to work if anybody’s out there from SAE, please contact me. I’d love to work with you and see how we can get this into colleges.

Crew Chief Eric: You’re right. There’s a certain stigma around the word engineering.

It’s almost scary in a way. Like you just say, well, I’m a chemist. You’re like, Oh, cool. You know, beakers and things and whatever, and it’s possible explosions. [00:41:00] Then you go, I’m a chemical engineer. And you’re like, Whoa, stand back, hold on. What’s going on here. Right. You put that word on anything and it suddenly just takes it to the next level.

And so I like the fact that by going early where minds are maybe a little bit more impressionable, but less jaded, you drop the stigma. And to your point, everybody’s now part of a team. And I think the younger students, especially high school students, they still have that team mentality. When you get to college, you’re like, man, I’m going to go do this.

Plus the word engineering behind it. Right. And then you become singularly focused. You almost become myopic. You’re specialized, but you no longer have that team mentality. It’s more survivalist in college where it’s like, well, my parents dumped me off here. I’m here for the next four years. I got to figure this out.

Like, to your point, like going to Germany. Got to survive, right? I got to get through this. Got to figure out how I’m going to excel. I applaud you for that. But I think there’s one more challenge here that spans, I think, the entire age range. And I don’t want to be any sort of way, but we all know that it’s true.

It’s first of all, it’s females in motorsport. And then it’s the [00:42:00] extension of that, which is females in engineering, right? Which have been positions that are tough to fill. And we’re starting to see that change every day, right? Like the full team of women that are running in Indianapolis, right? And you’ve got, you know, more and more women in science and all these kinds of things, but how do we engage them early?

Drop the barrier and make motorsport less of a male dominated sport and bring in more, more ladies into, into this.

David L. Middleton: It’s by putting a program like this right directly in front of them. Unfortunately, one of the casualties of COVID is I was working with a school in California and you can go on my Instagram and see, even though I don’t have much there, it was an all girls school.

And I brought the simulator out there to demo to the teachers and the teachers loved it. And then they brought in four girls just to get in, just to have fun. And when I tell you, you couldn’t get these four girls off of my simulator, you know, when I’m saying, Hey, I know what to do. She just jumped right in.

She hadn’t really driven before, but she keep it on the black stuff. And it’s encouraging, you know, women showing them that they can do it and don’t put any barriers on them. And [00:43:00] in getting programs like this in front of them, I’m fortunate. I have two daughters and another on the way. And then I have three girls in my household.

And my four year old, every time I’m playing Formula One, she comes in and she goes, can I drive? And sometimes like in the middle of a qualifying, and I’m like, baby, now it’s not the climb, but sure. Sit in my lap because I don’t want to discourage her. My eldest daughter, I’m starting her in carding already at six.

And I said, Hey, we’re, we’re practicing on the SIM and she gets on the SIM and she tries her best. But what happens is I have neighbors and I invite my neighbor’s kids over because they know what I do. I’m the crazy guy with the helmet and going off the tracks and coming. They, they know, they know exactly what I do.

And they have kids. And one of my neighbors has son and daughter. I invited them both over. They did a couple of times. Then the son only came over and I said, Hey, where where’s your daughter? Well, we don’t know. I said, did she like it? Yeah. She liked it. So it’s a bring her over. Well, you know, we’ll see if he likes it first.

And, and yeah, that’s a wrong move. And I keep saying, no, bring your daughter over. My daughters love seeing her here. She’s a little bit older than my kids. [00:44:00] You know, I said, my daughters also like to get on and see another girl, you know, it’s just, it’s recognition. That’s what, that’s what we gravitate to.

It’s encouraging them from an early age. It’s having programs, not just my program, but having other programs that’s showing them. carding that’s showing them, whether it’s wrenching, things like that, that to get them started at early age and tell them, look, you can do it. It may be tough. You may be the only one.

It may not exactly be, uh, what you thought it would be at the beginning, but stay with it. And then when they get older, they will go into careers. So I think it’s on us. And I mean, the general public to encourage them. I’ve had girls say, Hey, I can’t be an engineer because I’m bad at math. I’m like, well, what’d you get in math?

A’s and B’s. I’m like, what? What do you mean? You can’t be an engineer. Well, you know, that’s just not for me. And I don’t know where they get this from. I make sure that in my household and I make sure that when I go and talk that I tell people, this is absolutely for young girls too. You know, I want young girls in this program.

I want girls schools in this program. I want girls to do the [00:45:00] after school program with the guys to have mixed teams to fight, mix it up. You know, I want them to do that, to understand that look, this entry to motor sports, it’s, there’s no barrier, you know, you just have to go do it.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s funny you bring that up because, and I know people are going to cringe because I try not to bring it up too often, but I’m going to say it world rally.

Right. I grew up in the group B era. And for me, women in motorsport back then, it wasn’t uncommon because there were a lot of women rally drivers. I’m one of the most famous, one of the fastest ladies on the planet. They used to call her Michelle Mouton. Right. And her co driver Fabrizia Ponce, she went on to do rally later Dakar and a bunch of other stuff.

I mean, they’re, they’re famous. And even the same time in Trans Am, you had Lynn St. James running with Willie T. Ribs and Hurley Haywood and all them. So because I ran in those circles, it was like, you know, there were Definitely more men, but it wasn’t uncommon to see women, but I’m like, how did it not catch on, especially since the eighties when, you know, motorsport was so much more accessible than it is today.

Like I don’t, I just don’t get it. [00:46:00]

Crew Chief Brad: And to add on to that point, since you spent so much time in Germany and the U S. Do you feel it’s a domestic problem to the U. S. or is it a worldwide, like a global problem?

David L. Middleton: Yeah, that’s tricky because I knew somebody who raced in E. T. C. C. Particular female, man, she was good.

She was, I learned a lot from her. First of all, she was a great engineer. She could just flat out drive. From one year to the next, sponsors just backed out. She should have went from E. T. C. C. to W. T. C. C. There were people who were less talented. And I don’t know, because, you know, in Europe, they don’t frown against female drivers.

But at the same time, if you don’t have the right team behind you, if you don’t have the right PR person, sometimes it seems like there are some women who get promoted, who shouldn’t be there. And there are some women who should be there and they don’t get promoted. It’s very hard to say. I think domestically, sometimes the mindset is that this isn’t for girls.

Like, Oh, you’re a girl. Well, go play women’s soccer, go play tennis, go play softball. Like we’ve got, we’ve got women’s sports. Like that’s your thing. And I’m like, no, [00:47:00] like let’s, if they like motor sports, well, don’t force them. Right. But if they like it. Don’t shine away. Still trying to solve the problem myself, to be quite honest with you guys.

I talked to a lot of engineers, talked to a lot of drivers. I hear a lot of things, some of it, not all positive, but I’m trying to figure this out because I would like to know what’s the disconnect. Right? If you ask me about African Americans, well, I could tell you what’s the disconnect with at least African American males, right?

I can, I can explain that because that’s the side that I was on. But for females, I’m working with people and trying to listen to what’s the disconnect.

Crew Chief Eric: Is it because we make it overly complicated? When cars are complicated, but maybe the barrier is simplifying it. That’s what I mean. Even for people that they’re like, I’m not a car person.

I don’t get it. Right. Going back to my analogy about them being toasters and dishwashers, maybe that’s part of it is we’ve made it so complicated or seemingly complicated that it turns people away.

David L. Middleton: Maybe. I think also one of the things is you have to have a path and you have to have a path to get young [00:48:00] girls to become, whether it’s drivers or engineers or whatever, like something clear, something sustainable and something not done for PR, right?

No offense to anybody out there, but there’s a lot of PR stunts. And some women walk away like, what was that? Like that wasn’t even a fair shake. Well, what did I just get involved in? This is all PR. Like, I’ll give you an example. The, the w series scrape. I like it. Right. But personally, I want someone from the w series to immediately be able to step into formula three.

And I’ve heard people say, well, you can’t do that because if they get in the form of them to get crushed, well, so what you keep saying when the w series, you get into formula three or you get into formula two or something like that, and then. Make sure that there’s a clear path to success. Now, if they’re getting crushed, well, then you got to think about who you fill in the w series with.

Don’t just fill it with women to fill the grid, fill it with talent, right? Exactly. When it comes to men and women, there’s no shortage of talent on either sides, right? But the problem is. Sometimes somebody gets a spot more because PR and less [00:49:00] of talent. And there’s that pressure, unfortunately, for a woman who’s going to be a driver and there’s pressure that you’re going to have to perform, right?

Because you do have men who are going to frown down and say, Oh, well, she’s just here because, you know, she’s a female. So there is that pressure. You’re going to have to deal with that pressure to perform. But I do believe there’s a lot of women. Who can definitely not only go in the industry, but be drivers, but you got to get the right ones.

Don’t fill it because it’s a PR stunt. Don’t fill these spots because you’re just trying to fill the grid, like grow the talent. And if the talent isn’t there, then you got to go to the grassroots and say, what’s the problem? How do we get more women at the grassroots?

Crew Chief Eric: And you know, what excites me about this, David, the most is your kids and my kids, same age.

We’ve both got girls. And we’re probably going to be standing shoulder to shoulder at a paddock, probably at road Atlanta going, look at them go, right. When we’re too old to do it, we’ll be cheering them on. Right. And that’s the plan. I mean, at least in my, in my fantasy world, that’s how it’s going to work.

My wife, you know, whatever, but I would love to see that happen. Right. And, and, and I think it takes us, it takes our generation to make that happen as well. So I think you’re really doing the right thing and [00:50:00] moving the ball in the right direction. So, I mean, I applaud you for that.

David L. Middleton: Well, thank you. I’ve been, I’ve been very clear with my girls.

I said, look, this is daddy’s love. Right. You know, I go to the track, you know what I do on the weekends, you know, all the carding. I said, if you don’t want to be here, that’s fine. Dad’s not going to force you. But you know, I’m going to the track and I come home and I have like all the bands and everything.

And every time I come home, my girls are like, Oh, you’re at the track again, you know, like, why aren’t I going? And that’s what I’m trying to do to motivate them to go on their own. You know, I don’t want to force them, you know, and say, Hey, you know what, baby, there’s so much sponsoring dollars out there for a girl.

Go get it. No, it’s like, look, if I want you to love it, if you’re not going to love it, don’t even bother. Go do something else. This is dad’s passion. But if you are going to love it, I’m going to support you any way you want. My eldest daughter, she likes pink and blue and she already said, I want a helmet.

I want pink and blue shoes. I want this. I said, that’s fine. I said, do your first carding class before I buy anything. Do your carding class. Say you like it. Dad will start buying equipment, but until then, I don’t want to go buy all the stuff that you’re never going to use. So

Crew Chief Eric: that’s, that’s why I had them buy [00:51:00] me a pair of pink Pilates for Christmas and I wear them.

And I’m like, Hey, these, my daughter, if somebody who’s got a problem, I have a daughter bought these. That’s awesome. They’re driving shoes. They’re amazing. I love them, but, but getting back into it a little bit.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, to change gears a little bit, we’ll go back to the sim rigs. So your bio states, you consult with some of your clients on sim rigs.

So we have a lot of sim racers in the group. What would you recommend to be competitive for someone racing on like an iRacing or in our case, Forza or whatever? You know, just to, to be fun and just to have a lot of fun, not necessarily, a super competitive or whatever. Okay. So I’m giving you some free consulting here.

David L. Middleton: I think the rig is about, it’s about immersion. So I think you can be fast on anything. Of course, there’s some differences with brake pedals and things like that. There are certain rigs out 80 20. Those are the aluminum profile rigs. I know they’re a little pricey. There’s different ones of a rigidity. A solid rig and the [00:52:00] wheelbase.

That’s what you want, really, because it’s the wheelbase, the pedals that make a difference. I would suggest to anybody who, who’s in the market, has the money, go with the aluminum profile rigs. I think they’re some of the best. There’s several companies that do it. And that’s what I would recommend.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, we talked early on about the setups and the different things that the students are doing and setting up the car.

And, you know, a lot of times we look at setup in the video games. as a dark art, right? And so I actually did an article recently about that called The Dark Art of Forza Tuning. And I’ve kind of walked through approaching how to tune a car in the game from different angles. And, you know, certain changes have what seemed to be almost a placebo effect versus other ones actually have, you know, the inverse effect, the way you think about it in reality and stuff like that.

So to dovetail into the question that Brad just asked you, What are maybe some basic techniques for folks that are already maybe established virtual racers that want to get into tuning that you could pass on some of that knowledge?

David L. Middleton: Absolutely. Well, I think some of the techniques you can do is when you make changes, whether it’s your, your suspension [00:53:00] or your arrow.

What you want to pay attention to is the effects it has on the inner outer and middle of the tire. If you’re finding that there’s too big of a temperature differences between them, then you want to go a step back. There’s a lot of good resources out there. If you can find it still, there is a GTR tuning guide, which, which I read years ago, and I still have it saved.

To my desktop, because he kind of goes through steps and he says, look, if you do this step and that step, and this is the result you’re getting, and you’re seeing that your temperatures are rising, then go back every time you do a step, you do six or seven laps and see where your car is at. And if you like that, well, you go on to the next step.

If you tune that. And again, the temperatures are fine. You tune something else. Now, if you change that and the temperatures are going crazy and the can’t, and the bounce of cars feels weird, go back a step. So I think it starts out with small things. As you start. Maybe working on your brake duct openings, tire pressures.

Of course, that’s like the first thing. If anyone’s driving ACC, if you nail the tire [00:54:00] pressures, man, it helps. It helps a lot. And then just try stuff. It’s a, it’s a lot of practice and you have to, I would say, start tuning three things, try a couple of weeks, tuning three things, then start expanding four things, five things, six things.

And actually always go in with a plan. One of the things I do when I’m, I’m seriously practicing. I will go into a track that I know and I spend the first 15 minutes just doing laps, just so I get like a baseline of myself. And then I say, all right, I’m going to take the car that I know here or the car that I got to drive this week to this spot.

Start tuning it till I feel good. And then I’m going to go to the track where I’m competing at. So I think it’s about practice consistency. And I also, okay, I’m nerdy. I write it down. So I write down some of the changes. I, you got like spreadsheets and yeah, you know, just like a real engineer. I do that because I’m like, wow, that, that worked here, but it didn’t work here.

How can I get faster? So that that’s my suggestion.

Crew Chief Brad: So you don’t recommend my approach, which is to go in and change [00:55:00] everything and then ditch the car after two laps because it’s undrivable. I can’t recommend it. I’m sorry.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I mean, there’s the other approach to which is turn on all the nannies maximum downforce, you know, all arrow to max and send it at that point.

So that’s

Crew Chief Brad: the Andrew bank.

Crew Chief Eric: So let me, let’s ask about this is we talked about nannies, right? Nannies exist in the real world. Those are the driver aids, right? Whether they be simplistic ones like APS, traction control, stability management. There’s like a million of them now, all sorts of alphabet soup when it comes to that in the real world, ESP and TCS and all that

David L. Middleton: stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: But in the virtual world. How do you tend to set up your rig? Are you full manual manual with the clutch? Do you turn on and off stability control? What’s your best blend there? Or do you just turn everything off?

David L. Middleton: I’m more of the almost turn everything off. If I’m driving ACC, I got ABS set to one. I got traction control, usually set to two or three.

If I’m driving formula one, I got everything off except for [00:56:00] the hybrid system. I have it on automatic because it’s not realistic. That’s not the way it works in the real world. And it’s too much of a pain in the butt for me to keep switching it on and off and going through the mapping that that’s not the way it works when I’m driving, when I’m driving on, um, project cars, too, I have it set to realistic, but then I usually turn down the traction control as, as much as, as I can,

Crew Chief Eric: doesn’t interfere as much.

Yeah.

David L. Middleton: The minute it starts interfering, it’s like, I just shut off. Even if I know. That there is traction control say on, uh, but let’s say the GT four, the minute I feel it on my pedal. I just can’t drive like that. I’m sorry. So I shut it off.

Crew Chief Brad: That brings me to another question to kind of circle back to your students and your curriculum a little bit.

How do you feel or what do you think, or have you seen. their driving skill evolve over the course of your program and learning this engineering, I guess, skills, has it affected the way they drive in the SIM and has their driving gotten better both in the SIM? And if you happen to see them, [00:57:00] you know, driving their 1989 GTI on the street, I mean, how, how has their driving evolved?

Well,

David L. Middleton: unfortunately I haven’t seen that in a lot of students again, because of. Where we were with launching my, um, but I, but I will say that I’ve done a short courses, the driving from when they started in the SIM and when they came out weeks later has totally improved because I teach them driving techniques.

Some of the kids never knew what a marker board is. I have something on looking ahead and I show video of in game footage of it’s me driving, but I’m going down and I say, look. Here’s a marker board, or here’s a gap in the fence. Here’s this. And this is how you break. Because for them, they’re like, Oh, the curve’s coming time to get on the break.

They have no idea. It’s

Crew Chief Eric: analog. Yeah. Right. It’s

David L. Middleton: very analog. So I teach them actual racing and driving techniques. They start applying it because they they’ve got a lap counter and they’re like, wait a minute. I’m slower, you know, when I don’t pay attention. So now I’m paying attention. I’ll just buy kids who’ve come and [00:58:00] visited the house and done laps and laps and laps.

And I’m always sitting in the room while they’re driving. I’m trying not to talk too much to annoy them. But sometimes I’m like, Hey, you know, Jerry, why, why did you break there? Oh, I don’t know. I said, well, try breaking at the 200. Once he gets it down, like, hey, Jerry, try shifting it to 150. Where are you looking?

Well, I’m looking right at the market board. No. Once you start breaking, look towards the apex. I’m very hands on. I want, I want them to learn. And I have seen the kids who’ve been in my house improve. I’m hoping it’s going to transition that when I have high school students, I have several programs that their parents are going to be like, man, my, my son or daughter is a much better driver now.

And they understand speed. You know, I’m hoping that a lot of these kids will realize this is why you don’t speed on the street. Because it is so dangerous. And now you understand a little bit of vehicle dynamics. So please don’t speed on the

Crew Chief Brad: street. I’m envisioning some of your students sitting in the car with their parents.

Mom, you really shouldn’t be driving like that. You missed the apex back there at the curb when you drove past the stop sign. But I got one other question for you. I know Eric wants to jump in here, but, [00:59:00] um, have you ever had any like beat the teach? competitions or anything. Have you ever been beaten by one of your students?

David L. Middleton: Not yet. And yes, we do. In fact, one of the ways to get the word out is I have a beat the pro challenge where I was going in schools and bringing the simulator, did it in California. And luckily, you know, I had one kid who was like, Oh, I play Forza. And he was pretty good. And I was like, but I beat him

like, he was, he was like, Oh, he’s like, okay. He’s like, I don’t know this game, but I got fours it. And he got on the wheel and I was like, okay, well, I’m going to have to really drive and then that

Crew Chief Eric: goodness, the physics and PC too, is a little more complicated.

David L. Middleton: He didn’t, he didn’t let foot break. So I had the advantage.

I’m sure eventually it’s going to happen because kids adapt so quickly. You know, and, and that’s what I want. I want, I want kids to beat me and I want me to, I want to be upset about it, but, but I’m going to be like, Hey, tip my hat. Good job, young man, young woman. And that’s what I want. I want them to be excited about taking down a pro or taking down an adult.

Crew Chief Eric: To Brad’s point, I found [01:00:00] myself. Many times using the simulators as teaching tools, not only both for the real word HPDE, but also in our VRL where folks are like, I am just not getting this track and I’ll be like, cool, let’s get on, on a multiplayer session. We’ll do lead follow at Watkins Glen and I will walk you through the track.

I’ve recorded videos with that too, where it’s like, Hey, here’s a lap of VIR on Forza or whatever. This is how we do it in real life. This is how you should do it in the game. I mean, modify for your driving style. If you’d like to drift every corner, that’s up to you. Do you find yourself doing that as well?

Or is that part of the curriculum is kind of just teaching him the basics.

David L. Middleton: That’s not part of the, of the current curriculum at all, unfortunately, because I do have a lot of guided. On track stuff, but I do use it a lot with friends, especially friends who, I’ll give you an example. I was fortunate enough to drive Imola.

A bunch of my friends, they drive PC2. We drove Imola for the first time. And the first thing I did, I did a closed session, private room. I did lead follow. I remember, and I was [01:01:00] so visual being there. Like I remember the track, like it was the back of my hand, you know, in the first session, they followed me and then we did some practice and I’m still like four seconds faster.

So I had to do it again. But just because, you know, when I went to Emily, I just soaked it in, I was there for a couple of days and I just soaked it in and I love that track, but I do use lead follow. I think it is a powerful tool. I think it’s great if you are an up and coming. Carding kid who does SIM get somebody who could do lead follow with you.

You know, I think it’s so helpful.

Crew Chief Eric: So what you’re saying is you need some virtual coaches. I got you. I think I’m picking up what you’re putting down.

David L. Middleton: I do. I have grandiose plans and I would love to see everything and every thought that comes across my mind into the program. But of course, we’re still growing.

We’re still young. But I, and, and that’s why I come on a show like this is to connect with people, because I think there’s so many people connected to motorsports and automotive who’d say, Hey, look, I’ll give back to some young people if they’re going to, if it’s going to benefit them. So

Crew Chief Brad: you guys can always be a virtual coach.

Well, do you GTM even got it start? [01:02:00] We’re very deep in education and wanting to give back to the communities, teaching people, you know, the proper ways to drive and various things like that. Um, so, yeah, we’re whenever you get to that certain point, we’d love to help in any way. We can.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. So that actually leads right into probably 1 of the last questions, which is, you know, what’s the direction in the future for my, you know, is there a way to partner up?

Is there a way to volunteer our time as petrol heads to help you out or make the program better?

David L. Middleton: Well, yeah, if you’re interested in volunteering or learning more about what we do, there’s our website, my dash racing. com going forward. I am looking for partners. Um, what I, what I hope, and, and I’m, I am working on this is I still would like a standalone center.

There are certain partners I won’t name right now, but there’s certain. Partners, I think, would work well. I live a few minutes from Road Atlanta, so if you can imagine, there’s opportunity combined with Road Atlanta, and it is the Michelin Speedway, so you got Road Atlanta, you’ve got mechanics, you got [01:03:00] technicians, you’ve got IMSA there.

You’ve got Lanier, Drifting Track, there’s all these opportunities, and I go out to the Drifting Track from time to time just to watch. And sometimes it’s filled with thousands of young people. We gotta be able to do something there, because these kids need careers. Some of them aren’t really doing anything.

There’s that. I think there’s a lot of potential, but I would like a stand alone center. I would like a place where people can bring their kids. But I am also going fully virtual in case, you know, you don’t want to do in person, that’s fine. The other thing I’m doing is, as it is now, it is kind of a team based thing.

I am writing and finishing up the solo aspect of it. So if your son or daughter says, Hey, I just want to go through the curriculum myself. I want to do the races by myself and then maybe jump in for the practice races as a group where other kids are doing the program. And we say, for example, all right, Friday, June 20th.

Will be practice race one, you know, and then they come meet online. Then that aspect is there.

Crew Chief Eric: So would they be submitting that, let’s say via Twitch, that way you could go back and see [01:04:00] it or jump into their session and watch them live? Are you actually broadcasting the races for the curriculum for the different years that you’re doing on a platform like that, where we could tune in as an audience and check out and reach you guys on?

David L. Middleton: That would be great. Currently, we’re just using our own platform and and we have a, um, a standalone app with video capabilities, but broadcasting would be again, there’s nothing short of what I want to do what I want to accomplish. And that would be great because I want people to tune in and say, Hey, Look what these kids are doing.

I want my son or daughter to do that.

Crew Chief Brad: If you need commentators, uh, in a play by play people, we’re, we’re right there for you.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh yeah. We can trash talk

Crew Chief Eric: with the best of it. It’s amazing. You’re not going to get David Hobbs quality announcing from us. That’s for sure. Hey,

David L. Middleton: you know, that’s what we need though.

We need, we need some humor. We need some trash talking.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s turn one chaos right there. Coming up. Just be prepared.

Crew Chief Brad: Every single race.

Crew Chief Eric: The race is not one and turn one folks. To your point about, you know, [01:05:00] seeing all those people in the paddock at Lanier, even at Road Atlanta, it’s right in line with why we started GTM, which is to continue to spread motorsports enthusiasm.

Because one of the things that people forget is the word. Sports in motor sport. It is a sport. There is physical activity and exertion and all that. It’s not the same as a stick and ball game. Stick and ball games aren’t for everybody either, right? I wasn’t one of those kids. I was attracted to cars, mechanical things, whatever.

And so motor sport is another avenue to be physically active, to be involved. It is strenuous. It’s definitely cardio, right? What you were saying about people being there is how do we engage them? How do we make them the next generation of motor sports enthusiasts or motor sports participants and not let our corner of car culture, let’s call it that from dying off, we understand the EV revolution.

We know everything that’s changing. We’re embracing that we’re seeing in a drag racing. We’re seeing in a road racing where EVs are being brought on board. So. It’s not, you know, the end is nigh. It’s a matter of adapting and overcoming [01:06:00] to the changes that we’re seeing. But we don’t just want it to fizzle off and go away because think about how many tracks there are just road racing tracks in the U S alone.

There’s over 80 of them, right? That’s not counting your circle tracks, your dirt tracks, your rally courses, and then you go worldwide. Motorsport is huge and it’s amazing how small. It can be sometimes. And I think you’re right on the right track. Exposure, exposure, exposure, get them early, get them interested and realize that it’s not just, we’ll get Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton or whatever, these superstars.

I could be part of this too. I could be the guy that, you know, we talked about, was it the gentleman driver? One of our early episodes where it’s like, I want to learn about the dude. Who was the tire manager? Like he had the coolest job and they interviewed him and we’re like, can we talk to that guy some more, you know, or whatever, and, and so there’s so many different pieces to this.

And I think it’s absolutely amazing that you’re trying to engage kids at an early age and continue that forward.

David L. Middleton: Well, thank you. And I do tell a lot of the [01:07:00] young men and young women, well, look, we, we want you to carry this forward because this is what we love. We understand that things are changing, but you’re going to have to develop it.

You know, we want you to go in and develop it. We want you to have a love of motorsports and keep that in mind as you’re transitioning, whether it’s to Evie or whatever else is coming down the pipeline, and I think some politicians forget about just how big the motorsports industry is, they forget because if you just ban all these gasoline cars.

You know, there’s so many millions, billions of dollars tied in to motorsports, into, into gentlemen, racing, into all this, there’s, there’s so much money. So we want to develop kids who say, Hey, we’re going to keep this going, but we’re going to do it in a way where of course we can protect the environment.

So, so for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And what you do in motorsport often trickles down into your driveway. It takes a couple of years to get there. We’ve mentioned that before. It’s amazing how that trickles down. And it takes a lot of people like to your point earlier, it’s not done in a vacuum. It takes a team.[01:08:00]

And motorsport, you know, you look at basketball. Yeah. It’s a team of X amount of guys on the court and the managers and the coaches and all that, but motorsports even bigger, like there’s so much more involved. And so there’s an opportunity for everybody, male, female, young, old, to be part of that world.

And so that’s really important. And again, I applaud you guys for doing that. For more information on my, be sure to check out www dot. My dash racing and that’s M I E dash racing. com or follow them on Instagram and Facebook at M I E dot racing. And you can always reach out to David directly via LinkedIn by searching for David L Middleton.

And he’ll come up as CEO of my racing. So a couple different ways to get in contact with. My and with David, and we will be sure to stay on top of your guy’s progress and be able to help you out as much as we possibly can. So I can’t thank you enough for coming on the show. I think this has been excellent and an, and an amazing opportunity to talk about something new and exciting in the world of motorsport.

And I hope this [01:09:00] continues to grow and flourish.

David L. Middleton: But yeah, man, just again, it’s all about the passion and it just kind of led to these things. And led to me, you know, meeting Phil and. Connecting me to you guys. So again, thank you so much. Thank you for the time. Thank you for having me.

Crew Chief Eric: Pleasure.

David L. Middleton: Have a good night.

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

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve 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 [01:10:00] 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 this would be [01:11:00] 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 Introducing Middleton Innovative Education (MIE)
01:10 David Middleton’s Journey and Inspiration
03:02 Challenges and Realizations in the Automotive Industry
04:03 David’s Path to Becoming an Automotive Engineer
06:05 Experiences in Germany and the Nürburgring
16:36 First Cars and Early Automotive Experiences
20:21 Developing the MIE Program
20:28 Sim Racing and Educational Applications
27:25 Choosing the Right Simulation Platform
35:12 Simulators vs. Reality: Bridging the Gap
36:37 Adapting Education During COVID-19
38:05 Incorporating Hands-On Experience
38:47 Future Pathways: From High School to Formula SAE
41:47 Encouraging Female Participation in Motorsport
44:06 The Importance of Early Exposure
51:13 Sim Racing Tips and Techniques
01:02:14 Future Directions and Partnerships for MYE Racing
01:08:18 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Learn More

Some stories are just too good for the main episode… Check out this Behind the Scenes Pit Stop Minisode! Available exclusively on our Patreon.

While thriving in Europe, David began to notice a troubling trend: a lack of American representation in global motorsports and engineering. Conversations with friends from underserved communities revealed a deeper issue—many young people simply didn’t know these careers were possible. “I was the hope of the block,” David recalled. “Every time I sent pictures from the Nürburgring, I was giving people hope.” That realization sparked a mission: to create a pathway for students to turn their love of cars into viable careers. Thus, Middleton Innovative Education was born.

Sim Racing Meets STEM: A Curriculum That Drives Engagement

At the core of MIE is a hands-on, team-based curriculum that uses sim racing to teach STEM principles. Students work in groups of 3–5, each taking on roles like race engineer, suspension specialist, aerodynamicist, or team manager. Through 18 weeks of video-based instruction, real-world applications, and competitive sim racing events, students learn everything from thermodynamics to sponsorship strategy.

The program culminates in a final race, where teams compete for scholarships – bringing together collaboration, technical skill, and strategic thinking in a format that mirrors real motorsports.

David’s approach goes beyond the track. By integrating management roles and requiring students to write fictional sponsorship proposals, MIE teaches the business side of racing too. It’s a holistic model that prepares students not just to enter the industry, but to thrive in it.

Editors Note: 2023 Update!

David’s MIE Racing program has been integrated as part of the innovation curriculum at the DUNN School. Congrats to David, we can say… we knew him when! – Learn more.

David’s journey – from freezing a steering wheel lock with stolen liquid nitrogen in college to engineering race cars in Germany – is a testament to grit, vision, and the power of believing in something bigger than yourself. With MIE, he’s building a bridge for others to follow – a shorter, more accessible path into the world of automotive innovation.

As he puts it, “I want to make sure their path is not so long. If they love this, I want them to know how to do it.”

This content has been brought to you in-part by sponsorship through...

What Should I Buy? The Ultimate ’90s Car Debate

Brad N

August 10, 2021

What Should I Buy? The Ultimate ’90s Car Debate

On this episode of the Break/Fix, we dive headfirst into a question that haunts every nostalgic gearhead: what’s the perfect car from the 1990s to buy today?

Our guest, Mark Shank, joins the panel of GTM petrol heads – for the first time – to explore the golden era of Japanese imports, American muscle, and tuner culture. With a $100K budget and a taste for hooliganism, Mark’s mission is clear: find a ’90s car that’s fast, fun, and ripe for restoration or modification.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Mark’s car history reads like a greatest hits album of enthusiast favorites:

’94 Camaro Z28 (with a shift kit that broke mounts annually)
’98 Mitsubishi Eclipse GST
’06 Nissan 350Z
’06 BMW E46 M3 (manual)
’85 Porsche 911 Carrera (daily driver in SoCal!)
’15 BMW M3 (manual, four-door family hauler)
’16 Porsche 911 Carrera
Current toy: a 991.2 GT3 with a six-speed manual

He’s done autocross, BMW driving schools, and dreams of more track time with PCA. But now, he’s ready to add a new chapter to his garage – a car from the decade that defined his formative years.

Shopping Criteria

Mark’s wishlist is precise:

Must be restorable to pristine condition (no basket cases)
Capable of feeling fast—overpowered traction, general hooliganism encouraged
Open to American muscle, Japanese imports, and even obscure oddballs
Mod-friendly: not a museum piece, but a canvas for customization
All-in budget: $100K, including purchase and restoration
Bonus points for nostalgia, uniqueness, and emotional resonance

and much, much more!

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Our panel of break fix Petrolhead are back for another rousing. What should I buy? Debate using unique shopping criteria. They’re challenged to find our first time collector, the best vehicle that will make their friends go. Where do you get that? Or what the hell is wrong with you at the next cars and coffee?

Awesome and awkward all at the same time. That’s how I like to describe the nineties. Time when bands like Nirvana, sublime and Green Day were all we would talk about. And the cars we salivated over had exotic names like Supra RX seven and GTR.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right Brad. And tonight our special guest is fellow car enthusiast Mark Shank, who has called upon our panel of esteemed Petrolhead.

To answer the question we love to ask, what should I buy? And in this case, nineties cars. So we wanna welcome Mark to the show and our panel of GTMs that’ll be here with us tonight. So welcome Mark.

Mark Shank: Hey, thank you. Thanks for having me on. I’m excited to talk about this. I’ve been thinking about this [00:01:00] project for a while, uh, where I kind of go with my next car, and I think I have landed in the nineties, so I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanna do before we dive down this

Crew Chief Brad: rabbit hole.

Mark, why don’t you tell us a little about your car history? What’s your driving today?

Mark Shank: Mm, car history. So, uh, I, I kind of, I’ve kind of been all over the place. First kind of fast car that I had was a 94 Z 28 Camaro. It was unfortunately an automatic that was what I could afford at the time. The transmission went out on it and was able to put a shift kit in it, which was a lot of fun ’cause it would kind of break transmission mounts on an annual basis.

It shifted so hard, you could definitely break it loose between gears. Had a 98 eclipse, GST, which I absolutely loved. 2000 6, 3 50 z 2006. E 46 M three. With the, with the manual, let’s see, uh, had 1985 Porsche nine 11 Carrera that I picked up in 2009. That I used as a daily, uh, in Southern [00:02:00] California. So I grew up in Frederick, myself as well.

Lived in San Diego for about six years. It was such an awesome place for air cooled nine elevens. I mean, the, you, there were so many great shops that could work on them. There were so, like, I had this thing that was out in the desert, its whole life. Didn’t have a square centimeter, rust and anywhere. I love that car.

Was in mint condition. Spent a ton of money on it. Kids came, had to get rid of it. So I got a a, a brand new. I ordered. Did the track day pickup for, uh, uh, what is it, F 85, A 2015 M three, which was the four door. ’cause now I had a kid in a car seat, but I did get the manual in it. I, I do think everybody should own a four door manual car.

It’s a rear wheel drive. It’s a lot of fun. And then I, I turned that in. I got a 20 16 9 11 car. I guess that was a 9 9 1 0.1. And I have a BM BMW X five V eight for family hauler. The, not the M version. And my, my fun car is behind me. 9 9 1 0.2. GT three with a six speed manual. Uh, you thought this was a, an image background [00:03:00] behind me?

It’s not. It’s my actual car. Um.

Mike Crutchfield: Which I’m, I’m sitting here looking at like having anxiety over how close that is to the, the garage door from this angle,

Mark Shank: I, I, I kind of was like a two car person rotating cars around. I do think I’ve married that thing behind me. I just love it to death. So I think I’m, I’m, I’m with that one for a while, but I can, I can get a lift and, uh, I’ll just put something, um, underneath it or above it or something.

Crew Chief Eric: So in addition to that, you’ve actually done some ter cross and track days with, uh, PCA and some other groups, right? So you’re not just a collector or a connoisseur. You’ve been on track as well.

Mark Shank: A little bit. I, I do not want, do not want to over represent my track experience at all. I’ve done a couple BMW uh, driving school events with the, with the, the M three side, you know, some autocross.

But, uh, I, I want to do more of the Porsche Club. I actually have a neighbor out here as pretty active in it as well. I want to do more in that space. For me, it’s, it’s been a time thing. My job is tough and you’ve got little kids, so I’m hoping, you know, a [00:04:00] little older, a little more independent and, you know, they can run around on a Saturday without harassing me all day.

Um, but yeah, you know, I, I, I would absolutely love to get to a track a few times a year now, and then hopefully when I’m a little older, do that more frequently.

Crew Chief Eric: Since we’ve got a little bit of background into your car history, and I, I know, and I know in talking with you, you have a, you have a very good knowledge of cars and whatnot and we kind of had a precursor conversation to this about cars in the nineties.

And so, you know, as we get into our basically main event here, our, what should I buy panel, you know, a bunch of us have come prepared with some options for you about going about and buying a nineties car. What we’re really interested in is getting your shopping criteria, you know, what you’re looking for, price range, some things you’re not interested in, some things you may be interested, et cetera.

So why don’t you lay that out for the panel so we can better focus on some of our suggestions.

Mark Shank: Awesome. I think the panel will be fun because I love a lot of things and you know, I’m, I’m really kind of open, so a couple things, right? I’m, I’m kind of OCD, [00:05:00] so I want something that I can get in really that I doesn’t have to get it in really good condition, but I have to be able to get it to really good condition.

Right? And so sometimes, you know, that can be harder with some of the older ones. I wanna have a very nice car and I’m, I’m fine with paying the money to get it there, but, but I like, you know, just clean and tight. No rattles, no no excuses. Really good shape. The, there are so many kind of different. Aspects of nineties car culture.

You know, I, I loved all of it. I love the Japanese unobtainium that you played on a PlayStation one, right. So I’m born in 81, so I’m in high school and graduated in 99. So, you know, kind of grew up through that. But I also grew up my entire life going to car shows, which was mostly American muscle. You know, I’ve, I’ve always thought about kind of different things that might be fun there.

So I’ve really enjoyed, you know, the Japanese sports car aside, the American muscle. I want something also that I can get. Pretty fast, right? I mean, not, not not fast in a, in a zero to 60 [00:06:00] time or fast in a, like a particular lap time, but I want something that can feel fast, overpower, its traction for most of its gears, and that you can be a general hooligan in.

So we were like having that debate. Like to me that kind of crosses out like a Ferrari 3 55, although those things are probably, I’m not sure they’re worth the price at this point. Super

Crew Chief Eric: unreliable too, but hey, whatever. Yeah,

Mark Shank: yeah, those generation V eights. I think one of the thing I, I did enjoy about it that I should mention, like the idea of kind of customization and modification, right?

So I’m not in this to get something, leave it bone stock and hopefully sell it, you know, for some money later. I don’t care if I’m devaluing it, I’m doing this for me. I’m not doing it as an investment or something, something stupid like that. So I, I do, you know, as you know this, this is a little bit of the 12-year-old kid who had the nine 30 with the whale tail on the wall, and, and that’s why I didn’t get the touring package on my GT three.

And I don’t give a shit if the touring package was the cool thing to do. [00:07:00] Exactly. It didn’t have a giant, it didn’t have a giant SPO on the back and my nine 30 poster did, uh, yeah, I mean, it’s a little juvenile. I don’t care. I’m doing it for fun. I think that modification and customization part of it is definitely part of that.

Call Karcher that I, that I really enjoyed.

Crew Chief Eric: And I think you said something just to, you know, kind of round out this thought before we turn it over to the panel to start throwing up their suggestion. I think one thing that was really almost prophetic in a way was when you and I were talking and you said, you know, looking back now on a car from the nineties is the same as when I was a kid, looking back at some of those cars from the fifties and sixties, it’s the same time gap.

It’s that same generational gap, and then it makes you feel super old when you realize that a nineties car is 30 years old at this point. Right. So, pretty crazy. It it is. You’re,

Mark Shank: you’re absolutely right. So, you know, growing up, and I’m looking at American muscle in the late eighties and early nineties, that’s how old these cars are now.

Right. And I’m going through with my dad and he’s telling me about, you know, my dad owned a ton of muscle cars, uh, back in the day. He, I grew up with him. Quarter mile [00:08:00] bikes were like his gr our garage. We never had any cars in our two car garage. It was full of motorcycles. And so, you know, there was a lot of motorcycles, but he loved cars, you know, was always talking about the American muscle.

And so yeah, that, that epiphany, I, it was literally just kind of dawned on me one day. I’m like, wait a minute. I am the same distance from those cars. Now it’s a tribute to the quality of the cars that they’re not all completely rotisserie restored like they were back then. Right. They had to be because they’d fallen apart twice over by the time you got ’em to 1990.

But, but at the same time, people are just starting to think about, how do I restore this car? You’re finding them still unrestored. I don’t wanna get into this 10 years later and the market is kind of already defined, and I wanna get in front of it and be able to do something before the market tells you what to do and, and people, yeah.

You know, start kind of figuring it out.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s shock the panel a little bit because you just slightly went there, but then didn’t say what your budget was.

Mark Shank: Oh. And so from a price range, I think all in. With like [00:09:00] getting the car and, and you know, I’m not, I’m not gonna do much work myself, right? So I’m paying somebody to do work on it.

I, yeah. So all in, uh, call it a hundred grand.

Crew Chief Eric: Alright guys, this, this is, this is the mission now, all right? Car from the nineties, fully restored. It’s gotta be ahoo, hooligan car, a hundred grand or less. How about we go to Mike?

Mike Crutchfield: Well, so you mentioned having owned a, uh, a Z 28. I love

Mark Shank: Mustangs, by the way. I, I love Mustangs.

But the Camaro had so much more power in that generation. I think you’d have to be a little silly to pick the, the five liter stock

Mike Crutchfield: if you’re looking for that more muscle car look, I would actually pitch the, the Camaro’s cousin. Oh, specifically the WS six. Yes.

Mark Shank: WS six. Yep.

Mike Crutchfield: I was always infatuated with those cars when they came out.

They were, I mean, a friend of mine had a 92 Camaro, but it was only the, the Rs, but the Firebird WS six with that big, uh, evil Ram air hood. Yeah. And the commercials they had were from Polar.

Mark Shank: The [00:10:00] evil commercial was awesome. And then they had, when it first came out, they had Chris Tucker driving one and one of his buddy cop movies.

Like, you haven’t seen Chris Tucker in a movie in 25 years, but the last one you saw, man, he’s driving a WS six around.

Crew Chief Eric: So I had the opportunity to drive a stock one, and I got to drive Mike Snyder’s, SCCA pro solo car. And Brad remembers that, TransAm. And I tell you what, when you mod a WS six and you really straighten out that suspension and get it dialed in, that car is a handful, but it’s also a hell of a lot of fun.

So mad props to Mike on that suggestion. I actually hadn’t even thought about the WS six.

Mike Crutchfield: Yeah, the second he brought up Camaro. I’m like, Ooh. You know, it just, it struck a memory of that car. And plus, since the WS six went with the LS motor, you have the whole LS aftermarket to go. Oh, absolutely.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely.

Big, big turbos. Big turbos. Yeah.

Mark Shank: Yeah, mine, mine was an LT one. It was prior to that, but yeah, towards the end they dropped the LS in it. So

Crew Chief Eric: is, is the GOAT an option as well, or is that, no, the goat’s later. Right, so that’s a two [00:11:00] thousands car, so that won’t work.

Mark Shank: 2003, two. Well, hang on, hang on. Okay, so this is a good point.

This is a good point. You know, I guess this is up to me. I think some of the best cars from the nineties were made in the early naughties. Right. They had matured it. They figured it out. Like the NSX you want is one of those last couple years. Yeah, that’s true. I’ll give you that. Yes. It’s like the best car from the nineties, but yeah, sure it’s from 2002, but whatever.

I don’t care. I’m not picky. Right. You’re E 39 M fives. There’s a lot of really great, I think if you look at its contemporaries at the time, in the early two thousands, they’re like, ew. You know, like, okay, it’s still solid rear axle still doing this. It’s still doing that. You know, Mustang had that brief flirtation with independent rear suspension in the cobras, but when you compare it to the nineties cars that it was the mature version of I agree.

I agree with, I totally accept, I will totally accept early naughties cars, but it has to be representative of the nineties. It can’t be like a. Like a 9, 9 6 turbo or something, which is like, cool, but that’s definitely not a nineties car.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I gotcha. I gotcha. So Mountain man, Dan, since we’re [00:12:00] talking GM Mountain man, Dan

Mountain Man Dan: I, I’m on board with Mike’s suggestion of the WS six and for that particular one with the Ramir was 98 to oh two.

So those were the years that they made that particular version of the WS six. And I’m all on board with that suggestion, Mike. Huge kudos for that. But a question I had for the budget. Is that number you threw out the initial purchase? Or does that include modified? No, I want

Mark Shank: that to be, I want that to be all in.

Right. So it kind of excludes something like an R 34 because it’s not gonna work. Right. But you could do an R 32 and restore it and build it up, and you could do a really great, super powerful car for that kind of money. If that’s what, if that’s what you wanted to do. I, I don’t mean to make anyone go discuss.

I will not do an Impala ss I’ll tell you that. I

Crew Chief Eric: can’t do it. I can’t do it.

Mark Shank: I can can, but this is the wagon. This is the wagon. What about the Callaway? It’s the wagon. So you don’t

Mike Crutchfield: want, you don’t wanna drive an upside down bathtub, is what you’re

Mark Shank: saying. Dax, Dax Shepherd has one of these prob. The, the, the [00:13:00] problem was that, I think the problem is, is that the SS was really cool for grown ass adults in the nineties.

I wasn’t a grown ass adult. So I’m thinking of something that I thought of as cool in my more informative years of which absolutely the WS six.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, if we’re, if we’re still talking GM then, you know, we, we were actually debating this internally and it was like C four Corvette or C five Corvette. I’m like, well, the C four Corvette, the only one in the nineties is any good as a ZR one, and it’s still a C four Corvette at that point.

So what about the C five Vet Z six as an example?

Crew Chief Brad: Z six didn’t come out until 2001. I mean, I could, if he’s talking about his nineties cars Yeah,

Mark Shank: yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Early two thousands.

Mark Shank: So the, I, so I wonder if the C five is maybe the inverse of my prior rule. So my prior rule being like, you could take a mature car that, you know, stretched into the naughties, but if you had, I think of the C five as a Naughty’s car that came out a couple early.

Right. And so, you know, not as much, do you have

Crew Chief Eric: enough chest hair to drive a Corvette?

Mark Shank: Yes. [00:14:00] I’m, I am I, and New Balance, I. If I didn’t shave, I would have hair from like here down to my ankles. So it’s totally fine. Um, the, um, the, my, so I will say it ’cause as, since we’re on American cars, I have two problems, which I’m gonna have to figure out how to get over if I’m gonna do it.

One is a solid axle and two are the interiors suck. And like particularly, you know, like a, a C four, even a C five Corvette. Like, I look at the inside of them and I want to throw up. And the funny thing is, is like I, you know, I’m not, I don’t mean to be German bias, I love American cars, but like, you can look at an 85.

3 25 BMW, and it’s a nice, clean, minimalist interior that is totally damn reasonable today. Like you can look at it 40 years later, it’s totally fine. And you look at like a, what Americans are doing in the eighties, and they have these crazy LCDs, like it all looks like night rider animations and giant blo buttons and like some kinda weird sci-fi fighter cockpit interpretation.[00:15:00]

I struggle with it a bit. I I’m gonna be totally honest. I, I really, and the worst, worst stepdad

Mike Crutchfield: had a c4 and yeah, that giant green bar that went up and across the dashboard, they were

Mark Shank: cheap plastic. The thin, thin little crowd, cheap plastic, the buttons, uh, that’s, well, even the

Crew Chief Eric: C five, you think you’re in a trailblazer.

You’re like, what the hell is this? No offense to the Corvette owners, I’m just saying it’s not the best until the c sixes and sevens, when they got their act together. I mean, it was not the best of interiors, but Mount Mandan, you had a comment.

Mountain Man Dan: Chimed in saying that basically they were made with such cheap plastic that if you find something where something inside’s not broken, that’s a diamond in the rough ’cause, whether it be the mounting spot for the switches or something, they always broke.

But one thing I was gonna ask is if we’re going pour sports stuff and something that was quick, I’m gonna throw this out there. It’s not a car. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. What about like the typhoon or the cyclone? The typhoon. You could still throw the rack.

Mark Shank: Ooh, ooh. I love those ideas. I love those ideas.

Mountain Man Dan: So they were fastest, could be up until [00:16:00] recently for trucks from the factory. Oh

Mark Shank: yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean they, they did a four and a half seconds, zero to 60 on the GMC cyclone and that thing, that record lasted until like, like the last Raptor or something. I mean, it was crazy. So, yeah, I, I love the cyclone idea.

I think that’s a ton of fun. I believe that had the Grand National motor in it. 3.8 Turbo. Yeah, the 3.8 Turbo, the intercooler. So I, I love, I love the grand, I love the Grand National. Uh, I love that motor. I realizing the Grand National is a little eighties, but that’s a great way to bring that power plant into the nineties.

So, yeah, no, I love

Mountain Man Dan: the Grand National was a 3.8 and the cyclone, uh, and the typhoon wore 4.3.

Mark Shank: I thought they were three eights. They were the same motor. Did they just, you like bore or stroke the motor? Was it a different power plant?

Mountain Man Dan: The 4.3, the easiest way to explaining it is a three 50 missing two cylinders.

Ah, okay. And everything is just six instead of eight cylinders. And even like front components and everything bolt up the same. One of the four, three off of the three 50 I

Crew Chief Brad: I see Mike is fact checking. Oh, we’re [00:17:00] Googling Mike’s always fact checking this right now. We’re Googling. It’s

Mike Crutchfield: the four three. He is

Crew Chief Brad: right.

Mike Crutchfield: Oh wow. Okay. Because Dan, of course, he’s right.

Mark Shank: What

Crew Chief Brad: about a GM

Mark Shank: can’t, you can’t argue with a mountain man.

Crew Chief Brad: I gotta finish this Chevy conversation and just get us off that train before we go down a road. We don’t ever, we can’t ever get back from, it’s true. To become a Chevy episode, I’m gonna go with the 3000 gt.

I like that. It’s my personal favorite. Everybody says the super or the RX seven, which, yes, they’re on my list as well, but the first time I ever saw a 3000 GT in a parking lot, I was like, oh my God, that is a beautiful Ferrari. I had no idea. I was like 12 years old or whatever. I don’t fucking know.

Mike Crutchfield: Save yourself some money,

Crew Chief Brad: get

Mike Crutchfield: a stealth.

It was, I was thinking the same thing. It was

Crew Chief Brad: just beautiful. It’s just a good looking car. All wheel drive. You can get the VR four, you can turbo the hell out of em.

Mark Shank: I love this idea as a kid, you read the car magazines, which I read religiously. My parents couldn’t get me to read a religious text, but I would read Car and Driver and MotorTrend every month that it came to my house and they would [00:18:00] always do the big three comparison, right?

The 300 zx, which is another car that was a nineties car but came out in 89 or whatever, right? A little before its time. It’s huge. Right? But they’d like a 300 Z zx, A mark four, 3000 GTVR four twin, you know, turbos and everything, and RX seven. And they do the comparison. And I always wanted the VR four to win.

’cause I thought it was the coolest looking car of the group by a mile. And it always got its ass kicked. It was

Crew Chief Brad: always the fastest in grand charisma

Mark Shank: though, the GTO and oh my. But it, it will like always lose ’cause it was so fat. The car weighed like 800 pounds more than all of its competitors. But it’s supposed to be a great GT car is supposed to drive really well.

It’s supposed to be a great driver’s car. I, I definitely like that idea. I wonder if the Dodge stealth is a little bit of a, uh, of a sleeper choice from our perspective of, you know, kind of not what people are expecting. I don’t think it’s as pretty particularly the late model VR fours. Right. So that’s a late one you show.

Yeah, and you know, ’cause they went away from the popup headlights I think [00:19:00] in 98, if I remember. Obviously not. Yeah. This is in 98. Not a stock inter 4 97, not a stock inter cooler on that, but yeah, no, I mean, yeah, I love them.

Crew Chief Eric: The only thing that worried me about the VR fours is if you’ve ever seen one under the hood, it’s transverse.

That’s the disadvantage I thought it always had against the 300 ZX or the Supra or whatever. Those being a classic, you know, front mount rear drive layout. The VR four was just like, ah, okay. So, so

Mark Shank: you wonder if in post life, in, in modification if you could help it get past that. Like, ’cause you’re right, it’s a front wheel bias all wheel drive system.

Because of that, it’s also got a lot of weight up front. So the weight distribution isn’t great, isn’t it? Like if you change the, the gear ratio a little bit between the front and the back, like that’s what they did with like, the focus rs where it was just like, like a, you know, a few percent faster in the back.

It puts a lot of pressure on the clutch in the middle, but it causes the power to go to the rear. Right? Uh, and, and, and you can kind of fix that bias in the, in the all wheel drive [00:20:00] system that way. But like, again. Because nobody’s really gotten into these cars yet. We’re just starting to get into this trend of 40 year olds having money and deciding they’re gonna dump it into this pit of car modification and whatever, restoration.

I don’t think people have really figured that out yet. Like you don’t see any great, well-documented path. Uh,

Crew Chief Eric: the only problem I have with the Japanese cars in this era is that we’ve already listed 80% of the good ones, right? Because if you, if you look, I mean, outside of the RX seven and all the ones that we’ve already mentioned, there’s a couple Sylvia’s, there’s some other cars that we didn’t get and things like that, that were Japanese only, but there wasn’t a whole lot of JDM offerings in the US that were really that awesome.

Oh God. Brad just put one up the

Crew Chief Brad: prelude. Oh, just for Brian? Just for Brian Sha who’s listening. Yeah. Because he’s listening to, he’s

Crew Chief Eric: listening to this screaming, what about the prelude? And I’m like,

Crew Chief Brad: there you go. But I don’t know how how much prelude, I don’t

Crew Chief Eric: know how much hoon you can do with that. Of less, you can’t

Crew Chief Brad: Front wheel drive, you got, it’s like 170 [00:21:00] horsepower or 200 in the sh

Mark Shank: Yeah, the sh I remember at the time that they made such a deal like that has a laser that measures the suspension and adjusts.

Ridiculous.

Crew Chief Eric: Was that the one with the four wheel steering or was it the Mitsubishi that had that? Yep.

Crew Chief Brad: Four wheel steering. Four wheel

Mark Shank: passive steering was, did they have the four wheel steering in that generation? I know they did in the, in the generation prior. I can’t, yeah. I believe it was in this generation as well.

Type R Integra, like if you’re throwing this up there. Yeah. Like that’s, that’s a 2000, 2001 car, but that’s like the pinnacle of nineties. You can’t get too much power out of those though. Or the civics, the civic type bars from that time. That’s just the money problem. Yeah. Too much power. You just gotta build the shit out of the motor.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and this all the skylines, right? And the R 30 twos and 30 threes. I’ve been talking to some people, the 30 threes are becoming really popular because they were unwanted to begin with. The joke I heard was the R 32 skyline is the one you took to the track. The R 34 is the one you took to the shows and the drag races and the R 33 was the one you bought your wife.

But when I look at the R [00:22:00] 33, it’s kind of indicative of the nineties design in general. Just kind of this Mobius marshmallow on wheels, like they’re all kind of look the same after a while. But the one car it brings to my attention and I thought of, and it’s on my list and it’s kind of the same car, but in, in two different trims.

The Toyota Soer, which is also the Lexus SC 400. All right. Right. So you can hone the hell out of that thing because it’s basically a two JayZ, just like a Supra, right? So you go nuts. What? Well, the s SC 300

Crew Chief Brad: is, and then you do a two JayZ swap. The SC 400 was the V eight. It’s V eight.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s right.

Mark Shank: Yeah.

But you get so, so yeah, I think, I think the Lexus SC is a great option to to think about. Right? That could be a lot of fun. And they had a manual that you could get with them. That would absolutely be really interesting. I think.

Crew Chief Eric: And you’re not paying the super tax either, right? You can have the same car, slightly larger, put your kids in it.

It’s a bit of a sleeper if you think about it in comparison. You can make 900 horsepower outta that two JayZ pretty easily.

Mark Shank: There’s a flip side to the Supertax though, which is like the supertax is the, the super is is [00:23:00] really the only one that is like really, I think. Really completely mature in regards to like, they’ve absolutely figured out every corner of that car, you can get reliably a ton of horsepower out of it.

You know, it’s gonna fail when you know how to make it work. There are no rabbit holes left or quests to, you know, don Kioti type things to try and figure out. I mean, don’t get me wrong, like, I’ve definitely been looking on eBay or, or auto trade or whatever, and be like, I could just buy this guy’s $150,000 car for 80 grand and you know, that would be pretty cool.

And, and, but then that’s somebody else’s build. I mean, exactly right. But like, you know, you’re, you’re getting it for 50 cents on the dollar and yeah, you go in and you fix whatever you gotta fix to get it sorted out. It’s not gonna be perfect when you get it by any means. You’ll certainly save a lot of money going into it that way.

Buy somebody else’s money pit and then get it sorted.

Mountain Man Dan: So what is the goal, intent for the vehicle? Is it gonna be something you street, something you track?

Mark Shank: Great, great question. I don’t see it being a racetrack. So [00:24:00] maybe, maybe quarter mile not to see that I’m like trying to, you know, make a nine second car or something.

But like, I think, I think it might be fun to take out the quarter mile, but yeah, no, I mean, mainly street drive around, have fun cars and coffee type deal. Take, take, take the kids somewhere, go to cars and coffee, remind them what cars used to be like my kids. I mean, not cars and coffee. They know. Um, and, uh, and, and, and have, just have some fun.

Hooligan is, I believe the word I picked at the beginning. That’s true. I’m gonna throw it out

Mountain Man Dan: there. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be good for carrying the kids around. But a two 40 sx, there’s a ton you can do with those.

Mark Shank: I loved those and the, and the little infinity variant of that, I forget what they called it, a G 20 or something maybe.

Yeah, that two 40 and the Infinity version absolutely would be a, well

Crew Chief Eric: the problem is for a hundred grand he can buy about 37 of those. ’cause there ain’t worth the damn

Crew Chief Brad: so, but they’re all missing their front bumpers ’cause they fell off at the drift circuit

Crew Chief Eric: a hundred percent. Right.

Mark Shank: Those are the ones they slow.

They [00:25:00] put the solid axles in.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, exactly. And it’s a 4, 3 0 2 under the hood,

Mountain Man Dan: the two 40. The problem is they’re so expensive ’cause the guys drifting them. They’ve all totaled them and wrecked ’em and destroyed them. But if you do wind up with a two 40, I just happened to have a body kit. That’s fun.

Crew Chief Eric: He said rolling his eyes.

Mike Crutchfield: So going back to a, uh, good old American car that fully fits the criteria. It’s, it’s at least not the, the, the earliest in 95. So the 1999 Ford Mustang Cobra, which was the first year of the more squared off design.

Crew Chief Eric: So that’s a SN 95. Right. But then there’s also, it’s an

Mike Crutchfield: SN 95 with the new body.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s also the 93 Cobra SVT, which is the last of the fox body.

So you kind of have it on both ends of the nineties, right. Depending on what you’re into. But even if you buy a fox body, I think you’re in the same camp that, like Bobby Parks is in, you throw the 3 0 2 in the trash and you put an LS in it and build like a 1200 horsepower monster. [00:26:00]

Mike Crutchfield: Well, but at least that one, the, the Cobra specifically comes with the independent rear.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true.

Mark Shank: No, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re absolutely right. That’s a, that is a great car. I think it looks really cool. I think that’s a great option. I do like that it has independent rear suspension and, and that it’s, it’s gotten it. It’s funny how they went away from that later, right? In the later, uh, GT five hundreds, they, they put the solid axle back in.

It’s a good move by Ford, in my opinion.

Crew Chief Eric: Racer. Ron’s on the panel. Do we want get some input from him?

Mark Shank: So, um, I think you guys have a lot of

Ron Shurie: really

Crew Chief Eric: great

Ron Shurie: ideas. You’re throwing a lot of good stuff out there. The situation is balanced between how nice a machine you can get up front. It’s not low wrecked.

Like a, a two 40 is gonna be trash period. I mean, they just, and a lot of this stuff you

Mark Shank: get from Japan is trash too, right? It just is.

Ron Shurie: They’re all used up. So that’s totally outta the picture. But think with American iron is not a bad way to go from a lot of perspectives. You know, the least of them being, you can usually find someone to actually work on it.

That’s without spending a hell of a lot of money because the RAs, that’s a specialty [00:27:00] guy. You know, BMW guys are never real cheap, but. Doesn’t sound like you’re really gonna go the BMW direction. So I, I would definitely, well underestimate thinking about America. I mean, I would definitely be thinking strong about American Iron.

I like the GT 3000. I think it’s a good car. I think the, the W Series are also good cars. They’re complicated though, and they’re not cheap to work on either. Absolutely. So, um, yeah, it’s a tough call. You can do real well for. The Cobra. I mean, there’s no, there’s no two ways about it. You save yourself some money for another toy,

Crew Chief Brad: you just buy a couple of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah. The Isuzu V Cross is one that you should totally do

Mark Shank: negative.

Mike Crutchfield: Oh, wait, no, the the one, the other one I brought up in chat is the Monte Carlo SS Tasmanian Devil Edition.

Mark Shank: Oh God.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh God. Hey, what the hell

Mike Crutchfield: They, they made

Crew Chief Eric: that, is that like the Bugs Bunny Venture van thing that they did?

Yes. Oh, it was, why don’t you just

Mark Shank: tell me to get the Dale Earnhardt edition?

Mike Crutchfield: Well, so more of the Dale Earnhardt [00:28:00] ones, they had the Intimidator and then they had the Dale Junior Edition. And then the head, the Tasmanian Devil Edition.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. We’ve talked about Americans, we talked about Japanese. You alluded to some Italians there at the beginning.

Let’s talk about the Italians for a second.

Crew Chief Brad: Fiat,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah. The, yeah, for sure. A hundred percent. That’s, that’s a winner. You know, FF 3 55. I mean, as good looking and evolution of the three series as they are, they have a horror story, you know, nightmare reputation behind them for reliability. But there’s a couple other Italians behind that same era that I think are better, maybe as a sleeper if you’re thinking about going in that direction.

What about the Maserati 3,200 GT precursor to the coupe?

Mark Shank: Is that the evolution of the buy turbo? Was it like the same chassis and setup or

Crew Chief Eric: negative? So it’s, it’s the swoopy one that kind of looks like an astin or a jag, which later become coupe. And then like the current body style that it’s now, it’s like the beginning of that lineage.

Mark Shank: So they [00:29:00] sold 27 of them in the United States? I, I think so, yes. Yeah. Um, speaking of finding somebody to work on, no. I mean, actually I don’t know anything about that car. It wasn’t on my radar, so it sounds really interesting. I like the idea of, of learning about that. I really don’t know much about it, you know, which is, I don’t have too many gaps, but that’s definitely one of them.

I also don’t know any shit about French cars from the nineties either. Don’t bother. It’s not worth it.

Mike Crutchfield: I was gonna say, just pack a lot of wine and cheese for when you’re broken down on the side of the road if you buy French.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. So Brad has a picture of it. Wait, he, wait. It’s that.

Mark Shank: Because they made that car up until like 2008.

I know. ’cause I lived in San Diego. It got re everyone drove one,

Crew Chief Eric: it got renamed to the coupe. And so originally it was the 3,200 gt. Ah. And so that’s, that’s what it’s, it’s the precursor to those, you know, what we know now to be kind of the current, you know, lineage of Maseratis, but there’s so, so,

Mark Shank: so that was like the, so that was like the early grand there mode of today.

Correct. Yeah. Those things were so popular in San Diego. You could pick that car up like [00:30:00] four or five years old with 25,000 miles on it for 20 grand.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. It’s a bargain really. I mean, and it’s a Ferrari power plant and all the fun stuff that goes along with that. But it’s not a Ferrari. Right. So.

Mark Shank: Yeah, I don’t, yeah, we’re gonna put air

Crew Chief Eric: quotes around it.

I don’t know. The one,

Mark Shank: I don’t know. I mean, did they make a manual with it? Because later they didn’t and they only had a single clutch. Correct. Automated, you know, pseudo manual. And that clutch was seven grand to replace and it went out about every 6,000 miles. And I know because my boss had one.

Mike Crutchfield: And does that, that fun?

Does that fun stuff at the Ferrari engine include removing the engine from the car every like 5,000 miles to completely rebuild it?

Crew Chief Eric: No, no. The fun stuff is open pipes, so you could really hear it sing. That’s what I was doing. Yeah. No, I mean,

Mark Shank: don’t me wrong, the sound was great. So my boss had had one of those, although it was like a 2008 or whatever, but the sound was great.

The intake noise was a ton of fun. Like I, I love, like you could hit the gas and you just hurt. It sounded like an angry dragon was sucking in air and it was really cool. So the, the engine was great. It’s fat, it is a, it is a [00:31:00] big, it is bigger than it looks. Yes. Like a lot of cars are the other way around.

That thing is bigger than it looks and it weighs like 4,200 pounds.

Crew Chief Eric: Speaking of bigger than it looks. And also coming from Italy. How about the five 50 Martinello?

Mark Shank: You can’t get those for a hundred grand anymore. I would love to get one and, and, and, and if I was smart, I would instead of buying. This would’ve bought a five 50 Marella for a hundred grand.

It’d be worth 200 grand a day. You cannot find a good five 50 for a hundred grand anymore. If we can please point me in the direction. Yeah. Right. But the five fiftys were cool ’cause they were manual only, which I actually think is why the, the values have gone out so much as opposed to like a 4, 5, 6 or something else.

Crew Chief Eric: 55 or whatever. Yeah.

Mark Shank: The five 50 was only that six B gated and the, the valuations have literally doubled in like the last four years. It’s crazy. I seen, what is that, an RSS six A nineties RS six. It’s a by turbo. S four B

Crew Chief Brad: five. S four Oh, okay. By Turbo. Yeah. We didn’t get a ton of power out of ’em. Not very reliable, but they’re fun to look at.

Mark Shank: Audi, Audi was still in the doghouse in the nineties, so it [00:32:00] was a huge gap for me. I only knew one person who, whose family had an Audi and they, they weren’t in the car magazines. They like, they were just, you know, you’d read about, you’d read about AMGs, you’d read about Mcar, but like Audi just didn’t exist until the naughties.

It was like it just disappeared and then came back.

Crew Chief Brad: When I was in high school, I knew one person who had an Audi and his entire family had about 50 of them, and he’s in that other screen up there.

Crew Chief Eric: That is true. We’ve had way too many, we, we lived through the nineties Audis, man. But you know, speaking of, since we’re talking about Audis right now, it makes sense to bring up the S eight from Ronan.

That’s a late nineties car and it’s also a sleeper. You know, we’re talking. Well,

Mark Shank: that’s a great idea. I love you guys. That suggestion made this whole thing worth it. I love that idea. I’m not saying I’m gonna do it definitively, but like I wasn’t even thinking about dinner. Curry. I love Ronan. I mean, you know, all his cool, uh, double clutching was in a EO, I think, but whatever.

Yeah, great idea. Love it. Put some, [00:33:00] yeah. In those cars

Crew Chief Eric: back then you’re talking somewhere, you know, south of 400 horsepower, but it’s easy to untap the four two and get more power out of it.

Mark Shank: Well, well hang really quick as we’re, as we’re going down this path with the, with the Audis. What, what about some engine swaps?

I, I, it’s kind of kicking around some ideas, right? Like, what if I put the E 39 M five motor, which I, pardon me, I forget the designation. S 62 or something. I don’t remember the E 39 M five motor, but like, put that in an E 40. I think there might be an opportunity to create, ’cause I do want something that’s kind of unique.

I think there might be some fun ideas around around doing something like that. I’m wondering if you guys have any, that’s Pandora’s box. Crazy, crazy thoughts on thematically appropriate engine swaps. Right. So like one of the coolest cars I think I’ve ever seen is an original two 40 Z, like a 1971 or two or whatever that had a skyline, but like a, mm-hmm like an R 33.

In line six dropped in it, right? And it was like, here it is kind of, you know, four generations later of that motor of the original inline six [00:34:00] in there. Obviously not for a nineties car, but like what, what do we think might be a, a thematically cool engine swap type idea.

Mike Crutchfield: It’s probably not a popular opinion.

A lot of people call it a hairdresser’s car, but I actually like the eight series.

Crew Chief Eric: It was on my list as well as one of my top, the three suggestions.

Mark Shank: I definitely liked the eight series I I was, I was so disappointed as a kid that, how slow they were, because they looked so fast, they looked badass. I mean they looked so cool and then they were like not actually fast.

Even the V 12 was just kinda like, why did you put a V 12 in it if that’s all it’s gonna do.

Crew Chief Eric: And there’s three different motor packages for the V 12. There’s like a five oh, a five four and a five six or something like that. So if you’re gonna get one, you get the later one because at least they figured it out and you get slightly more horsepower.

So, so be it.

Matt Yip: The biggest problem that the uh, V twelves ran into was the early V twelves were nothing but two six cylinders. The failure points were enormous. Like the throttle bodies were $1,500 a piece. Oh. And they failed in pairs. They failed in pairs, which apparently was bad. [00:35:00] You know, the, the one thing you hadn’t mentioned, you’re talking about Audis and you know, the A a A and the A A L were neat cars, but I had probably the more advanced version of that because of the time period and the technology.

Which was the original Audi V eight. They were, from a technology standpoint, amazing. But you know, they also used probably some of the worst technology ever available.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, let’s make a V eight by taking two 16 valves and putting ’em together. Right. I mean, it’s a kind of, that’s what they were doing back then.

’cause I don’t know why.

Mark Shank: That’s what Ford did to Aston Martin. Right, exactly. As soon as they bought ’em, they’re like, here, take this Ford Taurus and times it by two.

Crew Chief Eric: If we’re still talking about the Audis, I mean like to Brad’s point, I mean we grew up at one point I think we had three Coop Quatros, right?

But that was the beginning of the nineties. So that was the beginning of the round period, right? Where it’s like, okay, here’s a marshmallow and, and four wheels. So those early Audis kind of all look the same. You know, the 90 Cs sport, the, the Quatro, all that kind of stuff. Even the 100, [00:36:00] they weren’t anything to write home about.

But it’s not until you got to the B five S four or to the S eight where it kind of, they started to change their mind and started to go in an aggressive direction. And then, you know, Audi now is, is 180 out from there again. So I think there’s some cool stuff there. It’s just a matter of digging deeper and seeing what you can do.

Crew Chief Brad: So to Eric’s point, I’ve got your car for you right now. Alright, let’s do it. It’s an Audi coop. Quattro. It’s in Eric’s garage right now. It’s got a motor swap. It’s already done. It’s true. It just needs some TLC. He’ll sell you to you for a hundred grand right now.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s true. It is an S eight motor in there, so it’s 400 horse and it was featured in European car for anybody that’s listening many, many years ago, so.

Wow. So it’s a

Crew Chief Brad: famous car too. Look at that. That’s true. Original one-off, original six speed manual.

Mark Shank: Does it? Does it cut? Do you have original? You have the, do you have the magazine article like Uh, yeah, you have. There you go.

Crew Chief Eric: Yep. Well, that was the only one that ran in the country, if I recall. That’s true.

And then we did a Ur Quatro with a three six swap from the car that [00:37:00] Matt was talking about, the original VA Quatro. So we had two kind of unicorns at the time, but that other

Crew Chief Brad: car is no longer available, but he’s still got the one for sale. A hundred grand.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. I’ll take offers a hundred percent. I

Crew Chief Brad: have dollars.

Crew Chief Eric: But you know, since we talked about Audi and you know, we, we’ve, we’ve touched on some cars that might be unreliable. Let’s talk about British cars for a minute. And Brad flashed up the esprit. So what do you think about that?

Mark Shank: I loved those cars when I was a kid. I, there, I think getting a lot of power out of ’em was the problem.

It was nothing cooler. Was that V eight any good? I know it was like a 3.5 liter twin turbo. V eight. No, the transmission

Crew Chief Eric: was the best part of that car.

Mark Shank: You’re gonna swap it. Wasn’t the transmission in French?

Crew Chief Eric: No, it was out of a mano. Apparently

Matt Yip: the mano gets a bad rap. It really wasn’t a bad car.

Mark Shank: They loved the mon and old top gear.

They, they talked about the mon. They talked about the mon, like it was the greatest family car you could ever buy.

Mike Crutchfield: Oh, it was everywhere in Germany too,

Matt Yip: because you did a billion things to it and we called it the Jaguar X type in this country. [00:38:00] Yes. Yeah. Or the SVT contour, which the SVD contour was a, was a surprisingly nice car.

In fact, I have a friend who has one that’s 200,000 miles on it. Original clutch. And they were neat cars. I mean, they were small cars too. But you know, remember that this is in a time period when a big car was what, a five series? Yeah. And what’s five series size today? It’s like a, it’s like a three.

You’re,

Mark Shank: that, that I always said about my F 82 or 85 M three that I bought, the 2015 M three that I bought, it was the E 39. I always wanted, that generation of three series is bigger than that nineties, five series, you know, and, and it was like, this is, this is the M five that I want. Of course the M five now is a boat.

Oh, I so, and so I’m just buying the M three. But since we’re

Crew Chief Eric: talking about engine swaps, the Brits are pretty famous for jamming weird motors in kind of just normal cars. And that’s why I wanted to bring up and talk about the Brits, because the answer here in America. Is LS swap the world. We already know that.

So there’s no other [00:39:00] swap to do over there.

Mark Shank: It’s the Land Rover V eight and and all the things, but I came across two cars and

Matt Yip: the And the Land Rover.

Mark Shank: No. Tell us. Tell us, what about the Land Rover?

Matt Yip: The Land Rover V eight sucks. There’s nothing to write home about because it’s nothing but the three nine redone and the later ones the four fours and the four sixes are BM BMW motors, which is fine, but they’re BM BMW motors.

Mark Shank: Yeah, I think that’s, I think they use, I think they use them over there simply because that’s what they have available.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s very true. So speaking of cars that have BM BMW motors swapped into them from the factory, and this is why I wanted to bring up British cars. What about the Bentley Arage, which came with a 4.4 liter turbocharge BMW engine, or the optional six and three quarter liter turbo and that’s another sleeper?

Mark Shank: I’m not sure I have the patience. To own one of those cars in the sense that it’s gonna spend at least six months out of the year in the shop. You know? And then looking at the gap of my garage more, more days than it’s filled would be [00:40:00] difficult because you’re gonna be waiting for parts forever.

Crew Chief Eric: So the other one I came up on the Brit list, and they are famous for, this is Jaguar.

Are we talking

Mark Shank: J?

Crew Chief Eric: We are talking jets.

Mark Shank: JI drive a J

Crew Chief Eric: and it’s the XJR with the supercharged four liter, it makes 370 horsepower, zero to 60 and 5.6 seconds, and electronically limited to 155 miles an hour. I think that car’s kind of cool because it’s understated. It’s a jag. You’re like, ah, it’s a jag like anything else.

But it’s gonna put you in your place from traffic light to traffic light.

Mark Shank: Yeah, I think the, the XJR is great. The, the old X Ks, I mean, it still kind of looks like an eighties car, but man. You look at that. That’s, that’s such, I I still think it’s such a cool looking car and I don’t know when they came out with a more modern looking xk.

That might have been like 99 or something. No, I mean, I think Jags, they’re so good looking and in the nineties I think you still get some of that authentic British, uh, cigar library type feel to it, [00:41:00] whereas like by the two thousands that that’s turned into some cartoonish caricature of itself.

Matt Yip: The, the XJ was a sleeper too, because

Crew Chief Eric: like the M five, you really had to look at it to notice the differences.

Exactly, and that’s why I brought that car up. I think it’s a fantastic option if you’re looking for a sleeper that you can hone around in, no one will expect that Jag to be able to put that kind of power down and being supercharged, turn the wick up to 11 and see what happens. Right.

Mark Shank: Put some pulleys on it.

Bigger intercoolers. See what you can do

Mountain Man Dan: when, when you’re speaking of like the cars from either England or Europe in general. The little thing that I was doing a while back. Is if you go into like eBay co uk, which is England’s eBay, you go in there and look for the car you’re interested in and then shipping it over here, even buying it their price and shipping it, you’re still in it for less than half of what people here states.

I would be selling the same car.

Mark Shank: So I’ve spent a lot of time in London for work. I have to spend a bunch of time at Canary Wharf and the um, the used car values are so low. It’s crazy how cheap because they’re [00:42:00] so afraid of gasoline prices. So the crazy asshole buys it new ’cause they love the car and they don’t care how much they’re gonna pay for petrol and 80 billion pounds per English gallon or whatever.

They don’t care. But then used, it’s worth nothing. Absolutely. So I had some coworkers that repa, you know, Patriot, ated over there, immigrated, I, we should just say immigration. I think that’s, they’re immigrants. The, but the point being is that they, uh, they’re over there now and they love the cars. Like they’re, they’re buy, they, they’re so excited about the crap they can buy and how cheap it is.

You’re absolutely right. That’s a great, that’s a great thought. Buying it and shipping it from there is still cheaper. Now you end up with a right hand drive car, particularly with now you’re shifting stick left-handed. Certainly I’m

Crew Chief Eric: ambidextrous. I don’t know about you when it comes to shifting.

Ron Shurie: Let’s, that’s kind like fat too.

I’d like to bring up another car. Can we introduce another, another mark? Absolutely. Ron, go ahead, Panos.

Crew Chief Eric: I have that on my list. The ante. Esper,

Ron Shurie: [00:43:00] man. I mean, out of the box hauls ass gorgeous car. And it’s made with American Iron.

Crew Chief Eric: It is a modular Ford under, under the hood.

Ron Shurie: Yep. So, so I just wanted to bring it up because I, I love those cars.

They’re, they’re just beautiful cars.

Mark Shank: Pull a picture

Mike Crutchfield: up, Brad. I haven’t, I don’t think I’ve seen one of these, uh, Esper

Ron Shurie: made, made in Georgia.

Mike Crutchfield: You need to find one of Brett’s disassembled. One.

Matt Yip: The nice thing about the five liter Ford is if you can’t add power to a five liter Ford, you should really give up.

Yeah, it’s like, it’s like a small black Chevy. I mean, that’s a good looking car.

Mark Shank: We haven’t talked about, we haven’t talked about T That makes me think of the Tvrs.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes, that was on my list. The Serra,

Mark Shank: the Ser, the Erra was, was so hot in video games. Even. Even some of you know what some of the eighties tvrs look like, nineties cars.

They were always so far ahead of their time and being out there, uh, you know, fiberglass, crazy assholes that they were. I think tv, that’s a really fun option. I’ve been thinking so much. I’ve been [00:44:00] trolling JDM sites about like buying something in Japan. I’m importing it over and like I haven’t even looking at the uk and that could be a lot of fun.

Crew Chief Eric: And you can get skylines from the UK as well. And they’re a lot cheaper than getting ’em from Japan. A lot of people don’t realize that. So we don’t

Mark Shank: mention Morgan.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I mean they’ve looked the same since like 1920. Right. So I mean, can you So, so

Mark Shank: they, they make that, they, they made in the nineties they had that four.

So of course they have the three wheeler. No thanks. But they made that, the arrow they made forever in the, they had that in the nineties and back then it was still wood frame, which assuming it hasn’t been beaten out or something might be interesting.

Matt Yip: No, but they, they made an arrow, which was different because the Morgan like four four and four eight or whatever the hell they were, those were the classic look that arrow eight or whatever the hell it was.

It was almost like a cartoon. When they redid the body,

Mark Shank: it was like a cartoon gangster car.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, exactly. That’s across from, from

Mark Shank: prohibition. Like if, if somebody from Prohibition smoked did some LSD or [00:45:00] something and then we’re like, yeah, we’re gonna see this.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, Brad just threw up a suggestion. What you got there, Brad

Mark Shank: show?

I thought they didn’t make this car. They didn’t, did they make this car? I remember I’ve seen

Crew Chief Brad: one in person at an autocross.

Mark Shank: Yeah, but they only made like five. I remember watching a documentary, I remember watching a show in the nineties where Shelby was doing donuts in that car. Probably that exact same car.

He was still alive. Dirt.

Matt Yip: We had a guy here who had a, he owned a do it yourself garage and he had the Shelby one,

Mike Crutchfield: two hundred and forty nine were built

Mark Shank: 249. That’s more nice. That’s a lot more than I thought. That’s really cool. Yeah, it’s, it was 80 K new, if I remember correctly, from my childhood. I’ve seen

Crew Chief Brad: one in person though.

They’re slick.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, but it doesn’t look too different than the Payos though. In all. In all. No, I think

Mark Shank: they were competitors here. Here’s something we haven’t thought about. You know what else blew up in the nineties in car culture Kit? Cars?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes.

Mark Shank: COBRA Kit. Car. Like I’ve, I keep looking at COBRA kits. One of my coworkers has [00:46:00] a great back draft with a BMW three series suspension in it.

So it’s independent rear multi league front, and you Ford racing crepe motor in it. Ah, man, I It’s the back, but then you just, you’re just

Crew Chief Brad: taking a car that may have come out in the nineties, but it’s based off a car from like the sixties.

Mark Shank: It is, but, but it’s definitely a more, it, it is certainly an interpretation of it though.

It, it is not that. That, that original car, but that was just such a craze. Right. And you remember, you remember walking around as a kid, you’d see these kit cars like everywhere. Like you don’t see too many Cobra kits out on the road. Mm-hmm. I remember back then used to see ’em all the damn time.

Crew Chief Brad: There’s also the, the Ferrari kit cars that were built off.

The Firo. The

Mark Shank: Osh off the Fiero.

Crew Chief Brad: I think Dan’s got one buried in his property somewhere.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh my God. Not yet.

Crew Chief Brad: Not yet.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh my God. That’s terrible. So since we’re still sort of talking about British cars, there’s one that we’ve probably forgotten about, which I happen to stumble across, which was the Aston DB seven, the first really modern looking gorgeous, correct?[00:47:00]

Correct.

Matt Yip: The the acid Martin Jaguar XJ. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Understated, underappreciated. Probably mostly forgotten at this point because of the DB nine and the DB nine s and all the successors. An affordable nineties car. If you’re looking for something quasi exotic,

Mark Shank: if you can find, if you can find one with a manual in it.

Crew Chief Eric: Wasn’t that a, a

Matt Yip: supercharged six cylinder?

Mark Shank: I believe it was. I think the DB seven was the first time they put the four Taurus v sixes together and made the V 12. Oh,

Matt Yip: yeah. But I thought they had a straight six, DB seven.

Crew Chief Eric: I think I’d have to go back and double check. But there’s all these, there’s always those packages and swap outs.

The Brits that love doing that, like, oh, we created a body and let’s jam another motor in it, you know, call it something else.

Mark Shank: I have a memory of them selling DB Sevens pretty well. In fact, I remember that being the first time I actually really saw people driving in Aston Martin. You’d have to go down to Potomac or somewhere where there were rich people, but like, no, certainly not in Frederick.

Matt Yip: That was the first quote unquote new. Aston Martin. And how long since? Since the nda?

Mark Shank: I think it was the war. [00:48:00]

Matt Yip: Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Well that was, that’s always been the British philosophy. Why invent something new and you can continue to use what you’ve been doing for 50 years.

Mark Shank: Could put a Dodge Caravan up there.

Huh?

Mike Crutchfield: The ultimate nineties car. A brand new hell cat. Red Eye.

Mark Shank: Yes. ’cause it is a 1998 Mercedes eClass Go. With a 900 horsepower V eight in it. It was everything a MG wanted to do in the nineties, but couldn’t.

Crew Chief Brad: Nineties car. Why did not talk about the Pontiac Sunfire? I just want to know.

Crew Chief Eric: It reminds me of the Chevy Cavalier

Mark Shank: had, I would, I would love to get a Pontiac Sun, Pontiac Sunfire.

I did have a 1989 Chevy Cavalier first car, but I would love to get one just to pour gasoline on it later on fire.

Crew Chief Eric: And what will you do with the remaining $99,550 to spend? Yeah.

Mountain Man Dan: Something else. Well, I’m gonna throw it out there. What is it? The, uh, Volvo C 70, I think it was.

Crew Chief Eric: I like [00:49:00] those from the Saints or the, the, so,

Mark Shank: the sobs you like.

Yeah. You can’t ignore Volvos and sobs. Yeah, you can.

When did, when did, when did the eight 50 R come out? Was that 2000 or 2001? I don’t know. I feel like it was kind of a

Crew Chief Eric: No, the eight 50, well, the eight 50 R maybe, but the eight 50 turbos, those were out in the nineties.

Mike Crutchfield: Yeah, and they look exactly like that. Dodge Caravan.

Crew Chief Eric: I

Ron Shurie: had one, I had a, I had a 1995 H, 50 T five R.

It was only for one year because the R were only the first and second year. Fantastic car. I loved it.

Matt Yip: Well that was probably the absolute first Volvo in like what, 30 years? It was not such, you know, the V 1800 was a cool car.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I agree.

Matt Yip: You know. Then what’d you end up with? Two 40 and the 2 42? You know, look, look at us.

Drive boxes. They’re safe

Ron Shurie: and they’re fast. Those are fast as as well, man.

Matt Yip: And you’re talking about motor swaps is. Remember the car that Paul Newman drove? It was a seven 40 with a five liter Ford because it fits.

Crew Chief Eric: [00:50:00] Yeah, that’s true. That was pretty cool. They drove that car on, uh, an episode of, uh, Seinfeld’s Comedian’s Cars and Coffee with, like, David Letterman has one as well that Paul Newman built for him.

It’s a, it’s a cool sleeper. And if you go back to your engine swap thing, I think Matt’s right on it. I mean, it’s like a Volvo. Make it 400 horse with a Ford crate motor in it. That’s kind of cool actually. Oh, Brad’s onto something. I’m going in that direction. So let’s talk about Germans

Mark Shank: get a hammer. That would be great.

I could do a hammer tribute. That would be a lot of fun.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I was thinking Braas, pick yourself up a bras Mercedes because people have forgotten about those cars and that’s a precursor to the AMGs that we’re used to today.

Mark Shank: Absolutely. Well, I mean, I think by the nineties. A MG had definitely, Braas was the, the underdog by that point, A MG had really blown up.

But no, I, I think the thing that’s hard to appreciate though is they, they really, the, the volumes were so low, like on those, they’re genuinely, it, genuinely hard to find. But I agree. I think that’s a great idea. Problem. Of course, Mercedes never put a [00:51:00] manual in anything.

Matt Yip: True, true. They, they did, but only in the one 90 E.

Mark Shank: Yeah. Or the diesels or something crazy.

Crew Chief Brad: Hold on, but before we go there, so manual is a requirement.

Mark Shank: I won’t say that it is a requirement. I’m pretty open, but it there, there’s gonna have to be some real compelling things that bring me in. I, I mean, I love that car behind you. I love those wheels. God, those are so cool.

Crew Chief Brad: This is the 500 e with the Porsche, uh, drive. Train,

Mark Shank: yeah. The ones that Porsche did the drive, train, assembly on. Yeah. Yeah. I, I love that car. I think that’s a very fun idea right there.

Mountain Man Dan: But that just makes you a European taxi cab driver.

Mark Shank: I don’t, you know what, no one in Carroll County knows what a European taxi cab driver drives.

I guarantee you.

Mountain Man Dan: That’s true. I’ll give you that.

Mark Shank: That’s very bad. I taxi cabs. Why? About why not a Crown Vic? Yeah, I was gonna say no Impala ss no Mercury Marauder. They’re both great cars. I don’t want one.

Matt Yip: Well, the real, the real sleeper Mercedes is not the 500 E, but the 400 E because that was a 300 E with a V eight.[00:52:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, interesting.

Matt Yip: So it looked just like the 300. Except it happens to have a V eight in. They were nice cars. They weren’t as exclusive as the 500. But they also weren’t nearly as pricey or as, not finicky, but just fragile isn’t even the right word. When stuff breaks into 500 E, you just kind of bend over with a 400 E.

A lot of it’s just off the shelf for safety,

Crew Chief Eric: which I guess could be the same about the sl. Right? So the SL 500 I always thought was a gorgeous car, but to your point, doesn’t come in a manual. I guess one of the criteria I was gonna

Mark Shank: do an sl. I definitely do the 600 because V 12.

Matt Yip: And the biggest problem with the SL 600 is it’s a fucking whale.

It’s so heavy.

Mark Shank: You’re not getting shit outta That’s so

Crew Chief Brad: I’m gonna throw out another idea. It’s a car that’s on the uh, panel right now that might be for sale if you gave enough money. It’s a manual. It’s German, it’s [00:53:00] four doors with a V eight. It’s a seven 40.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’s true. With a manual swap. Yeah. See that’s another swap.

You were talking about engine swaps. Talking about tranny swaps, right?

Mark Shank: Yeah, so, so the one thing that’s really distracted me from this to go a little afield of nineties car has been a Ferrari F four 30 with a manual swap. It’s like you buy an F four 30 for 80 grand, you, you put a $25,000 transmission swap in it and you have a very, very cool fucking car.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true. I’ll give you that. I could see that as a valid distraction.

Mark Shank: I always struggled with my last M three because had that electronic differential, I had to like think about what the computer was gonna decide to do with the diff and, and that’s what I love. The difference with the, the manual GT threes is they put a mechanical differential in it, whereas with the pks, they, they go electronic and, and they, they try to go best track time.

But like, I, I agree with you. It, it was distracting, like where I thought the backend would step out on me on the M three. Like, I’d even get to the point where like, [00:54:00] I, I was about to like, try to counter steer and then, yeah. And then the diff would fix it and I’m just like, what the, I can’t, I can’t stay ahead of you.

What, what are you doing?

Matt Yip: I, I had friends who had the newer a g cars. The thing I dislike the most about them is it saves you. It saves you from stupidity, it saves you from anything you wanna do to it. And I said this many times before, I like cars. You have to respect the fact that anybody can get in there and push the pedal to the floor, turn the wheel sometimes and let the car fix the rest of it.

There’s no challenge in that. There’s no fun in that.

Mark Shank: I couldn’t agree more. You know, the, the Viper mentality, they didn’t put traction control in until they were federally mandated to, you know, your traction control is the pedal and your, and your,

Matt Yip: and your, and your brain.

Mark Shank: Well, it’s funny, it’s funny that you say that.

I’ve, I’ve heard a lot about on the nineties cars that like when you try to track them, the a BS can get really confused and it can can

Crew Chief Brad: Oh yeah, yeah, it can,

Mark Shank: it can actually think it’s on ice and so then it doesn’t break [00:55:00] very effectively. Sometimes like it, it gets confused and then you can’t break into a turn and you hit a wall.

Mike Crutchfield: E 36 is love to do that. That’s

Mountain Man Dan: true. I was gonna say, I’m surprised it’s taken this long for the Viper to be mentioned.

Crew Chief Eric: God damnit. I was saving it. I was saving it. That’s my

Mountain Man Dan: crown jewel. I know, I, I I figured you would’ve led with your favorite car, but, you know, no, save the

Crew Chief Eric: best for last.

Mountain Man Dan: You gotta start at the top.

You know, I’m gonna break it down to a complete bare basic one. It’s where you can fit multiple in a place of one vehicle if you want to.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh God.

Mountain Man Dan: Just an Austin Mini Cooper. I mean, they’re cool

Crew Chief Eric: ass fun little cars to drive. Yeah. And they built them forever. They were the same up until the, the, the Fatties came out.

I mean, the, the new Minis came out, but, uh, not the, not,

Mark Shank: not the BM BMW Mini. The real Mini,

Crew Chief Eric: correct, correct. Yeah. They built those in England up until the two thousands in the old style.

Mark Shank: Yep. I love all parts of Karcher. I, I appreciate the minis for what they are, but it’s not, it just doesn’t, it’s not, you doesn’t get me out of bed in the morning.

I think, I think the Viper, you know, we talked a [00:56:00] little bit about like cars that. The best 90 cars, nineties cars being made in 2001 or oh two. Yes. The best nineties viper from 2016 would be a great purchase.

Crew Chief Eric: You can still buy those new today on any Dodge Lot, so you can

Mark Shank: still go, you can still find a Dodge dealer that never sold that

Crew Chief Eric: car.

Mark Shank: They’re sitting right next to the Dodge Dart

Crew Chief Eric: and the PT Cruiser. At any rate, shout out

Crew Chief Brad: to Romano.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. A hundred percent. The Viper is number one on my list by far. But in your case, see, I’m, I’m a, I’m a, I’m like a purist. I want a Targa. I just, I just want a Targa because it’s the original, it’s like a Cobra, the whole nine yard attack.

Mark Shank: And they, when they first came out with that GTS where I Exactly, that’s where I was going. I still, I still remember when I was, I must, I think it was a junior in high school when they first came outta GTS, the odd, that car was gorgeous, so it still is. White, great looking car, loose stripes and that hood scoop.

Nobody had hood scoops back then, except the WS six. Of course. Thing was, was uh, was evil looking. It was great. They’re

Crew Chief Eric: [00:57:00] sub a hundred. You can still get a GTS coop for less than you

Matt Yip: guys are missing. You guys are missing the, uh, the best price for product. That was not a viper. I showed that’s a low

Mark Shank: bar.

Just so we’re clear. It’s a low, low bar, but go ahead please tell us

Matt Yip: the SRT 10 truck.

Mark Shank: Yes. Yes. Put that V 10 in the truck. It was a great car, great truck. I drove

Matt Yip: one of those and that’s. It was the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever driven. I’ve driven, I’ve driven lightning. The SRT 10 truck is way more,

Mark Shank: fuck, I, I, I go, I think I go cyclone though.

I think I’d go cyclone. Yeah, I agree with you on

Matt Yip: that.

Mike Crutchfield: To drive home the dangerousness of the original vipers. I was talking to another instructor at an HPDE and he said one day a guy showed up in a viper and uh, he was talking to, to his coach. He goes, yeah, yeah, this is my third viper. I totaled the other two, so I figured I better learn how to drive it.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh God.

Mike Crutchfield: And then he totaled the third one at the track.

Crew Chief Eric: I still want one. [00:58:00] I don’t care. I still want

Mark Shank: one. That’s that, that reminds me of the C five Corvettes. Right? Like those things could snap on you so quick. Of course, I had that 85 Porsche nine 11 in big iron block way out in the back. Right? This was before they started inching it forward.

Every generation. That thing almost killed me once, and the, the idea of having to like feather a throttle to like, so like you, you screwed up. Like too little or too much, and just this idea that you just kind of have to bounce on it to keep yourself from dying was, uh, yeah. Widow makers are funny.

Mike Crutchfield: So I just heard something.

I can’t believe I just heard a Porsche owner admitting that the motor was too far back and they have to keep moving forward.

Mark Shank: Oh, those eighties cars the Right, I mean, so it was this huge iron lump, especially if you took some of the parts out, right? You’re in a 2200 pound car with this, all this weight out back.

Yeah, no, it was, it was really, really hard to hold a drift more skill than I, than I have. I couldn’t do it. And so the couple times the backend really got out on me was kind of like [00:59:00] puckering type moments.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, since we’re talking about German cars, now that we have left a few on the table, I think, and we talked about Mercedes and whatnot, we’ve mentioned a few BMWs.

What about

Mark Shank: another Porsche? I’d love this idea. I think my next family car will probably be a tie can or something. Sure. What are you thinking?

Crew Chief Eric: I’ve got a couple favorites all in the nineties, so I’ll just rattle ’em off real quick. 9 68, 9 64, 9 64 RS America, 9 93, 9 28 S four or GTS

Matt Yip: 9 68 was a fine car. Its biggest problem was it was a four cylinder, which wasn’t very exciting for buyers.

Crew Chief Eric: If you could find a club sport though, whole different animal compared to the stock 9 68. Yeah. ’cause

Mark Shank: they cut the

Crew Chief Eric: counter. Sure.

Matt Yip: Well, and and it took everything, it took a lot of what the 9 44 had, which was phenomenal weight, balance, and spectacular handling, and added something that the nine 40 fours never had.[01:00:00]

You know, I mean, nine four, dare you impuning the turbo.

Mark Shank: The problem with the 9 68 would be getting real power up. Agree. Because they were 230 horse back in the day. Three liter.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Nothing fancy.

Mark Shank: You know, the four cylinders is a little tricky. You know, you’re right. The, the non-cloud, like the originals, they, they had a really heavy counterweight, kind of made the motor not as much fun to try and make a smoother German driving experience.

I love the idea of a 9 28. It is the coolest car from the eighties that was launched in the seventies and made through 1998. Yeah. Right. But it’s, it is the coolest car of the eighties. I would totally love a, a 94 or five or whatever, if you can find ’em. I mean, those cars cost so much. Damn. Like the late model ones, those cars cost so much money.

So I, I had this idea I was kicking around earlier of, there was a shop in Pennsylvania, I can’t remember the name now, but they do, they do a lot of work on 9 28 motors to get through emissions. They launched the 32 valve in the 85, like so you can find a cheap 9 28 and make a hot rod out of that [01:01:00] as opposed to trying buy a four s or something, which, you know, is just, those cars are $70,000 or whatever.

Unrestored.

Mountain Man Dan: I just have to do a quick correction there, mark, because you said that was the coolest vehicle that like. Oh, oh God. Presented in the seventies and was available in the eighties. Eric, can you mute him? Body, square body. That’s all I gotta say. Uh,

Crew Chief Brad: box Chevy Caprice. Is that what he just said? Is that what I heard?

That’s a square body too.

Crew Chief Eric: Holy cow. That’s terrible.

Mike Crutchfield: No, his favorite car. The Ford Tar Wagon that made it into the

Crew Chief Eric: nineties, right? Mercury Sable wagon. But the thing is, I think the 9 64 was short-lived, right? 88 to 92. It was only around for four years and it’s underappreciated. But the thing that was badass about the 9 64 is all the variants that it came in in four years.

The RS America, the CTR, two Yellowbird recreation that they did, the 9 64 turbo. I mean, there’s a bunch of crazy, like it’s like the last hoorah of the old school, nine [01:02:00] 11 and to your point, a car that was built in the sixties that they dragged all the way through the nineties, and they finally got it right before they basically started over again with the 9 9 3.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the 9 9 3. Gorgeous car, especially some of those colors they had like that merlott and that ice blue and there’s some really neat stuff. And I got the opportunity to ride in a 95 twin Turbo 9 9 3. And that was unbelievably eye-opening experience. And I, I, it, it still has left an impression on me to this day.

Those cars are amazing. So those are on my vote. If you’re gonna go with Porsches, all the ones I listed, there’s some really cool stuff there in that really short window of time in the early nineties.

Mark Shank: It’s too bad the 9 6 4 turbos have gotten up, uh, so much in price. Those, those are really cool. Those are really cool cars.

They, they made a bunch of different cool, cool fun cars. Yeah, obviously I’d, if I, if I had a lot more money, I’d have a 9, 9 3 turbo. Of course car would be badass.

Crew Chief Eric: Now I think there’s another car we’ve forgotten about. You could buy it on a budget. You’d have a lot of money left over.

Mark Shank: What, what, what is this?

Crew Chief Eric: [01:03:00] Miata. Well, there’s always, well see you now. You’re ruining it. The answer’s always Miata, but VR six Rado.

Mark Shank: Oh, we’re gonna do Rados. I loved Rados as a kid. I remember my dad and I, we’d go to this dealership and we’d looked at this, I remember at the time thinking like, this car is $27,000. Are they out of their mind?

Crew Chief Eric: It was expensive. Yeah.

Mark Shank: And that’s why we could see that one same car every week for a year, because they never saw if it was the

Crew Chief Eric: one in dc if it was the red one in DC it’s the one my dad ended up buying, by the way. Just like you know, it was

Mark Shank: one in Frederick. It was, it was in a f Fred. It was in the Frederick Volkswagen dealer.

It sat there forever. But God, that car was cool. And I loved the idea of the, the supercharged four cylinder before the, before they put the VR six in it and um, G sixties, which I prefer the G six over to VR six,

Crew Chief Eric: last femur. Blasphemer. Well, well, I, I almost, I almost bought

Mark Shank: a co, I almost bought, instead of that Z 28, instead of that 94 Z 28, I almost bought a rado, supercharged, uh, [01:04:00] force cylinder.

Matt Yip: The big downside Rados had was they were heavy compared to anything Volkswagen made. The supercharged was slower than the Rocco that it replaced, which was a tough sell, and the V six, which was obviously faster. Suffered from the fact that it had this giant lump at the front. I mean, they were, they were neat looking cars.

The problem with them was they just like every Volkswagen,

Mark Shank: they drive the wrong wheels and the weight distribution sucks.

Crew Chief Eric: Now, I will say this, the VR six is one of those underappreciated engines though. And if you follow the VR Society guys on Instagram, they will swap a VR into anything. But it’s amazing the amount of power they can get out of that 12 valve.

I mean, 900 horsepower is not a stretch of the imagination to do out of that tiny little engine, which is absolutely amazing. But staying with that idea, also a car from the nineties, also from Volkswagen, also available with the VR six, the Eurovan. Think about Hot Roding. A Eurovan. That’d be pretty slick, man.

Sounds nasty. Big turbo. You’re still gonna light up the [01:05:00] front end, but it’s in a van.

Mark Shank: If I’m gonna hot Rod a minivan, I’ll do it right and I will. Hot Rod a Honda Odyssey, like Rutledge Wood did. People actually did that like, like when the, the whole Fast and the Furious thing. It was, it was like when. It was like a second version of when like, uh, Dr.

Dre got to the suburbs, right? And, and it was, and so all of a sudden you have all these kids thinking about like the crap they’re gonna do. Like people were legit putting nitrous kits in Odysseys. Like, it sounds like a joke, but they did it.

Mike Crutchfield: But what van could you buy with a manual transmission?

Mark Shank: None. None.

That’s

Mike Crutchfield: fine. A Dodge Caravan.

Mountain Man Dan: The Chevy Astro also I think offered a manual for a couple years.

Mike Crutchfield: I know, I know someone who had a Dodge Caravan stick shift when? When I was in high school. Did the

Crew Chief Eric: Eurovan come with a manual too? This Eurovan I just

Crew Chief Brad: put in the chat is a manual. There you go. Boom. This one’s a camper too.

Crew Chief Eric: What’s a West Flia? West Flia. So Mike being a BMW guy, BMW fan, I think there’s one we’ve forgotten.

Mark Shank: Z one. I [01:06:00] can’t afford an original Z eight, but a Z one with the door thing that drops down. It could be hot. The Z eights

Crew Chief Eric: are slick. Those are, those are hot. Those,

Mark Shank: these are so hot. I love the z eights back in the day.

Crew Chief Eric: It is a Z car. Come on. Come on, Mikey. Oh, the clown shoe. That one?

Mark Shank: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: the clown shoe started in

Mark Shank: 98. Z 3M or whatever the, the penis mobile. It was like an upside down cocking balls.

Crew Chief Eric: So those are, those are, you could hoon around in those cars. They’re light, they’re agile. Decent power for as for as big as they are with the 3.2 liter especially, I drove a, A 98 that was that a gentleman I know special ordered and all this kind of thing.

It was a cool car I had visibility wise, I thought it was a little awkward, but it all depends on your height more than anything. But everybody kind of raves about the clown shoe. You gotta get over the aesthetics of it. But it is definitely a hoon car and. In typical BMW fashion, throw a dine kit on it or something else like that and make gobs of horsepower.

Mark Shank: Yeah, absolutely. I, I almost bought a Z four M when I got my E [01:07:00] 46, M three. I was kind of going between the two, but the original Z 3M would, would be a ton of fun. That would be pretty, I, I kind of imagine they’re, they’re

Matt Yip: ugly. You either love them or hate ’em.

Mark Shank: I think I’d love one,

Matt Yip: I think

Mark Shank: I’d love one

Matt Yip: and that, and that’s another car you really have to respect because it’s got a boatload of power and no wheel base to speak of.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Matt Yip: You know, and, and that’s fun.

Crew Chief Eric: So do we have any other suggestions for Mark?

Crew Chief Brad: I think we should go around the, the horn and give our best Hail Mary.

Crew Chief Eric: I think so too. Well, I wanna, I wanna highlight a few things and Mark, you can correct me if I’m wrong, some of the things you went ooh, ah, about as we were talking about this.

I think 9 28 was on that list. I think the Audi S eight was on that list.

Mark Shank: 500 or five Audi E 500 for sure.

Crew Chief Eric: And maybe the BMW eight series. Right. So those are like the top five kind of out of the list of 30 that we posted out there. But I think, I think Brad’s right, we, we don’t have

Mark Shank: an American one in there.

I like the WS six. I think that’s a fun idea. I could do that.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s shotgun it. Let’s start, Matt, what would you recommend a hundred grand to spend [01:08:00] one car from the nineties go? Probably the 500 E

Mountain Man Dan: Mount. Well, I was gonna say we didn’t, uh, for American cars earlier, I don’t think we mentioned it, but the Ford SHO was a bit of a sleeper back in its time.

So. Get the fuck outta here with

Mark Shank: the Yamaha motor. Get the fuck outta here.

Crew Chief Eric: Wise guy. What is this Taurus stuff?

Mark Shank: So before it went Ular, the older boxier, the Robocop

Crew Chief Eric: one,

Mark Shank: the Robocop with the Yamaha V six. That’s not a bad, that’s not a bad suggestion.

Crew Chief Eric: Ford probe. So Mountain man Dad, that you, you’re a Blasphemer dude.

You cannot recommend a Ford as a bow tie man. So what’s your shotgun for Mark? No, no, no. I

Mountain Man Dan: wasn’t recommending it because I’m not a fan of SOI was just mentioning it. As I mentioned,

Crew Chief Eric: Uhhuh,

Mountain Man Dan: definitely, like I said earlier, I’m a hundred percent on board with the WS six option. ’cause there’s. A ton of aftermarket stuff you can do.

And those LS engines will take tons of power. But if you’re gonna go with European best bang for your buck would be go online and try to find something and [01:09:00] ship it. ’cause I think you would get it here stateside and have a lot more money to be able to invest in it than if you were to buy one already.

Crew Chief Brad: Stateside. This is the slowest speed round I think we’ve ever done.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, because everybody’s got 10 other, you know, things they want to add in there. Race, Iran, what are you thinking? Shotgun citation X 11. No,

Ron Shurie: that’s too word. Oh god, I’m, I’m thinking the Esplanade all the way.

Crew Chief Eric: The ante, thees.

Ron Shurie: Esper. Classy car.

Beautiful. Makes a lot of power holds. People got modern, uh, conveniences and still hauls ass and you can make a ton of power with that. Five liter or bigger.

Crew Chief Brad: I have three. The Ferrari F 3 55, the Shelby Series. One or one that would actually be attainable for me. The 3000 GT

Mark Shank: Shelby series one. Do we know how much those cost?

Crew Chief Brad: They’re, they’re in the stratosphere. They’re expensive.

Mark Shank: Oh yeah. Nope. Out of budget.

Crew Chief Eric: I like some of the suggestions that have been put out. I mean, I am, I was surprised by the WS six because I forgot about it, and I do really like that car. I think that’s a lot of fun. I think you could have a lot of fun with that.

But for the amount of money you would [01:10:00] spend in a WS six, you would park it in your garage next to your GT three and go, oh God, I own a pond. I’d

Mark Shank: park it on top of my GT three.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, right.

Crew Chief Brad: You’ll never drive that. WS six and the interior is complete garbage. It’s like sitting in your Cavalier from the eighties all over again.

Crew Chief Eric: Point in case, right? So that you would be

Crew Chief Brad: miserable.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s why I say if you’re, if you’re really thinking about going down that route and you don’t want something exotic like the Penos or you know, all these other cars we talked about, I honestly believe my heart of heart Viper is the answer because it’s already done.

It sounds amazing. It looks amazing. It, it’s not even moving. And it looks fast. It is fast. It’s a cool car. It’s it’s quintessential nineties. They got it right. Especially with the GTS coop. I don’t think you can go wrong and you’re probably gonna end up. You know, picking one up, let’s say in the market of 70 to 80, you know, pristine condition, low mileage without having to do a whole heck of a lot.

And you’ll have money left over in your pocket. You know, you build some of these other cars [01:11:00] and you’re still left with whatever the base car was. Now the exception to the Viper rule, like I said, is if you go back to the Porsches from the early nineties or mid nineties, there’s some really cool stuff there, especially if you could find a low mileage 9, 9 3 or even a 9 64 or something like that.

But you already have a nine 11 and you want something different. So I still think my vote lies with the Dodge.

Mark Shank: Alright. Alright.

Crew Chief Eric: And secretly I wanna drive it after you get it. So just letting you know

Crew Chief Brad: and, and I’m gonna change, I’m gonna drop the series one because they are unobtainium and I’m gonna replace it with the B five S four.

Mark Shank: I like that. I like that. I think I’d go S eight if I was gonna do Audi though. I agree with you on that one.

Crew Chief Brad: Been there, done that.

Mark Shank: I’m gonna throw this out there. I know you, this is for me. Just so we’re clear. This is for me.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, you’re not buying me a car. Well, why are we doing this

Mark Shank: shit?

Crew Chief Eric: It’s what waste should I buy?

What should last

Mountain Man Dan: 90 minutes? Eric was uh, talking some trash on your Ws just now. But here’s the thing though. [01:12:00] Pontiac is no longer a brand. That means it’s only gonna increase in value. Bullshit. It’s gonna stay at

Crew Chief Brad: 15 grand for its eternity.

Mark Shank: No, I, so I think, no, actually I do think you’re right. I, I think probably a good condition one would go up.

The, the problem is, is like, I’m, like I said, I do want to get into modification and, and personalization of it, and I, I think that will kind of. Will hurt Its resale

Crew Chief Eric: of, of a viper or are you talking about the problem? Oh,

Mark Shank: the, the w the like, you know, of the W six or whatever of a viper. I mean, everybody knows that’s a death trap.

I think if, honestly, if I were gonna get a viper, I don’t think I’d get one from the nineties. Like I think it would scratch that nineties itch, but I would get a later one and you know, then one of the ones that makes 640 horsepower or whatever, and it’s, you’re getting that outta the box and it only costs 20 grand more than the one from the nineties anyway.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I’ve ridden on track in an A CR and it’s unbelievable. One of my favorite cars ever. I mean, you can keep everything else as, as far as I’m concerned. So just like every, what should I [01:13:00] buy? Episode, we never really do come to a logical conclusion. Lots of really great suggestions and I’m gonna put air quotes around.

Great. And it was really fun to have everybody on the show. So Mark, hopefully we gave you some food for thought, you know, maybe some things you weren’t thinking about, some other things to consider, some sleepers and and whatnot. So we wish you luck on your journey. We wanna follow back up with you and see what you end up buying.

You know, thanks for coming on. This has been a lot of fun.

Mark Shank: Awesome. You know, I really appreciate it. You guys have given me a lot to think about. I, I think it’s important for me, like I try not to get married to any one idea. And so I try to find that mix of like the car that’s in the right condition and, and kind of checks those boxes.

And, and so it’s like, I, I, it’s not like I’m gonna come out of this and just pick one car and then I’m gonna go and try and hunt and find that it’s more of like, it’s kind of broadened my horizons from a search perspective. I will find a car that feels right and I’ll pick it up, and you guys have given me a lot of good ideas and, and I, and thinking in different directions from cars and even purchase markets to where I want to do that.

So I appreciate it. This has been [01:14:00] great. Very

Crew Chief Eric: cool. Very cool and we wanna thank our panel of, uh, guest g tmr tonight, racer Ron Hazmat mountain man. Dan, obviously, Brad and I are always here and if you’re listening to this episode and you would like to set up your own version of what Should I buy, don’t hesitate to reach out for us.

We’d love to have you on the show and give a, give you all of our bad recommendations. So until next time,

Crew Chief Brad: are we gonna do a follow up in about six months when Mark tells us all about the Miata he bought.

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@gtmotorsports.org.

We’d love to hear from you.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey everybody, crew Chief Eric here. We really hope you [01:15:00] 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 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.

Highlights

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

00:00:00 Introduction and Panel Setup; Meet Mark Shank: Car Enthusiast
00:01:09 Mark’s Car History
00:04:27 Criteria for the Perfect 90s Car
00:09:20 Panel’s Car Suggestions
00:13:14 Exploring American Muscle Options
00:17:17 Japanese Car Contenders
00:28:05 European Car Possibilities
00:38:12 Comparing Car Sizes Over the Years
00:38:45 Bentley and Jaguar: British Sleepers
00:42:50 Panoz and TVR: American and British Performance
00:44:14 Morgan and Shelby: Classic and Rare Cars
00:46:48 The Aston Martin DB7 and British Car Philosophy
00:50:23 Exploring German Performance Cars
00:51:43 American Muscle and Sleeper Cars
00:59:01 Porsche and BMW: Iconic 90s Cars
01:07:20 Final Recommendations and Wrap-Up

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.

The Panel’s Picks: ’90s Icons and Underdogs

Here’s what the GTM crew threw into the ring…

Lotus Esprit V8
Corvette C4 Grand Sport
Dodge Viper RT/10
Ferrari F355
Mercedes 500 E
BMW 850i
Pontiac WS-6
BMW Z3 M-Coupe
Audi S8
Porsche 993
Porsche 968
Mazda RX-7

Pontiac Firebird Trans Am WS6

Ram Air hood, LS power, and evil commercials
A true American muscle icon with mod potential
“Big turbos, big fun,” says Mike

GMC Typhoon / Syclone

Turbocharged AWD trucks that beat Ferraris in 0–60
4.3L V6 (not the Grand National’s 3.8L, as clarified by Dan)
Rare, fast, and full of attitude

Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 / Dodge Stealth

All-wheel drive, twin turbos, and aggressive styling
Heavy but beautiful—especially the late-model pop-up headlight versions
“Always wanted it to win the Car & Driver shootouts,” Mark admits

Toyota Soarer / Lexus SC300/400

Supra DNA without the Supra tax
Manual transmission available, 2JZ swap potential
Sleeper status with serious performance upside

Nissan 240SX

Drift culture favorite, but hard to find unmolested
Cheap, mod-friendly, but often trashed
“You could buy 37 of them for $100K,” jokes the panel

Ford Mustang Cobra (’93 SVT or ’99 IRS model)

Independent rear suspension, mod-ready
SN95 styling with real performance chops
A solid American option with street cred

Honda Prelude SH / Integra Type R

High-revving VTEC magic, four-wheel steering
Lightweight, precise, and full of ’90s charm
“Not much hoon potential, but a blast to drive”

Nissan Skyline R32/R33

JDM royalty, now legal in the U.S.
R33 gaining popularity as the “wife’s Skyline”
“R32 for the track, R34 for the shows, R33 for the sleeper build”

The Verdict? Still Undecided…

Mark’s journey is just beginning. With a garage spot open and a lift ready, he’s exploring every corner of ’90s car culture – from American torque monsters to Japanese tuner legends. The panel’s suggestions sparked memories, debates, and a shared love for the era that shaped a generation of enthusiasts.

Whether it’s a WS6 with a big turbo, a sleeper Lexus SC, or a VR-4 that finally gets its due, one thing’s clear: the ’90s are back, and they’re ready to be hooned.

Don’t agree, let’s agree to disagree? Come share your opinions and continue the conversation on the Break/Fix Discord Group!

This content has been brought to you in-part by sponsorship through...

The Unsung Heroes of Handling: Powerflex and the Science of Suspension Bushings

Gran T

August 3, 2021

The Unsung Heroes of Handling: Powerflex and the Science of Suspension Bushings

When it comes to performance upgrades, suspension bushings rarely get the spotlight. Yet these small, often-overlooked components are among the most stressed parts of any vehicle. They endure relentless strain without maintenance or lubrication – and when they fail, they can wreak havoc on your ride quality, handling, and tire wear.

In this episode of the Break/Fix podcast, we dive deep into the world of bushings with Jake Palladini from Powerflex USA and James Clay, owner of Powerflex USA and president of BimmerWorld. Together, they unpack the engineering, evolution, and performance benefits of Powerflex bushings – and why they might be the smartest upgrade you’re not thinking about.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Powerflex’s journey into the U.S. market began in the early 2000s when James Clay, then a rising force in the BMW tuning world, discovered the brand through his work at BimmerWorld. Impressed by the quality and performance of Powerflex bushings, Clay began using them in his builds and selling them through his shop. Demand quickly outpaced supply, and before long, Powerflex UK offered him the U.S. distributorship.

What started as a niche solution for BMW enthusiasts has grown into a comprehensive catalog of over 10,000 SKUs covering everything from Porsches and Audis to Ford Focuses, Mustangs, and even Toyota off-roaders like the FJ Cruiser and Tacoma.

Spotlight

Notes

In suspension tuning there is a rule of 3, that being: CAMBER, CASTER and TOE. Let’s address them all!
How do these settings affect UNDER and OVER steer?
Alignment 101 by Powerflex!
So when we talk about “Suspension Tuning” what does that mean? Are we just talking about an “alignment”?
Proper 4-wheel (versus 2 wheel alignment), ie: Thrust Angle, Bump, Squat, Roll-Center, etc.

Transcript

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Grand Touring Motorsport started as a social group of car enthusiasts, but we’ve expanded into all sorts of motor sports disciplines and we want to share our stories with you. Years of racing wrenching and motorsports experience brings together a topnotch collection of knowledge and information through our podcast.

Break Fix.

Suspension bushings are some of the most highly stressed components fitted to a vehicle and the least talked about. They undergo enormous strains in the most arduous of conditions with no maintenance or lubrication. Having old, tired, broken bushings or even bushings made of poor quality materials can cause excessive tire wear, breaking instability, and poor handling.

This is the single biggest reason you can instantly tell the difference. Between driving a 3-year-old car and a new one.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right, Brad. However, even new cars will benefit from upgraded components, especially bushings. Enter Powerflex, an engineering company with an [00:01:00] arsenal of innovative solutions for failure prone and poorly performing stock parts.

And because of their superior design, they offer much more effective control of your suspension components to a much greater extent than the OE items. And with us tonight from Powerflex, USA is Jake Palini from the Sales and Customer Service Department, as well as Powerflex owner James Clay, who some of you might also recognize as the president of Bimmer World to discuss all these crucial components of your vehicle.

So welcome to the show, James and Jake.

James Clay: Awesome. Thanks for having us.

Crew Chief Eric: Thanks for having us. There’s many of us, at least in our world, that already might use Powerflex components, especially on the German cars. They’ve kind of become the staple that we run to, but a lot of us don’t know where Powerflex came from.

So let’s kick off this episode like a lot of our other ones, talking about the origin story of Powerflex.

James Clay: Yeah, it’s, it’s funny you say German cars, which must [00:02:00] mean that we did our job, right? Because Powerflex, or our version of Powerflex, our term at the helm started with our sales of BMW bushings. This was super early on in my career as a Bimmer world guy, and so this would put it around early two thousands or something like that.

I had found power flake bushings. I loved the parts. Uh, I used them on on my cars. On cars. We were building, which, you know, small workshop, we weren’t building a ton of cars and we had started selling parts as bier world at that point. So we were selling some of these things. I just absolutely loved them.

They started to become more popular in that, in the BMW world became popular enough that we were selling so many that they said, Hey, you know, we have a US distributor, but their sales are 90% your sales, so. Would you like to be the US distributor? So we, we raised our hand, said, sure. And, and basically that was just a way to get more product because we were just really struggling to get enough of this stuff.

It was well received. People loved it in the, [00:03:00] in the BMW world, having a powerflex bushing with a lifetime warranty, which is one of our hallmarks, I suppose. But having that lifetime warranty was pretty awesome, especially when urethane was. Starting to be a thing, but not really universally a great thing in the automotive world.

So the early urethane, I remember some of the guys were taking stock bushings and of course stock bushings made to a price point, usually outta rubber U usually with a lot of voids to kind of reduce the NVH noise vibration harshness, which is something I’m sure we’ll talk about a bit. People were taking those stock parts and filling them with urethane.

And so I remember it’s like two part stuff you buy at McMaster car and it comes out red. And if you do it at the right temperature, maybe it works out okay. And if it’s not quite right, it crystallizes. And a lot of the solutions in the market were kind of made of that material or something real close to it that wasn’t so great.

So to have a company like Powerflex with a product with a lifetime warranty, and then again, not just a product that fills a hole, but. A [00:04:00] well-engineered product with specific voids, specific hardware, you know, all this stuff. We’ve done this for a bunch of years, uh, so that was early two thousands.

Crew Chief Eric: But the parent company, Powerflex is a UK based company.

So were they building these components for British cars first or did they start with BMWs as well?

James Clay: So they started with European cars and now we’re seeing it more in the us. I, I assume Jake would say that we’ve, we see a lot of BMW, but we also see Porsche, Volkswagen, Audi is a, is a big thing for us.

Jake Palladini: Yeah, they’re, they’re huge as well as some domestic stuff is getting pretty big too. Like the Ford Focus, uh, we’re seeing some stuff for the S five 50 Mustangs. We’ve actually just recently seen stuff released for the FJ Cruiser, the forerunner. Tacoma. That’s new stuff for us. ’cause that’s sort of almost kind of breaking into the off-road market, which has potential to be huge.

James Clay: So, you know, interesting. But even though we’re kind of on Ford Focus, Ford Focus is a European car. Right? That’s a, that’s a European market car that now we get in the us [00:05:00] And kind of same thing on the, on the Mustang that the reason that we started being on the Mustang is because that became a global car instead of just a US car.

Powerflex in the UK was absolutely focused on European cars, had good adoption from those drivers of those major marks, the BMW, the Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, et cetera. And then just based on where they’re located, based on the cars that they could get for development. Then of course we had. Volvo Saab.

Yeah, it just, it European manufacturer. So that’s really why the focus became that, I suppose, as, as they started

Crew Chief Eric: out. So was the focus the first car they developed something for, or was there something else?

James Clay: And I’d say the focus, the attention focus. Ah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let’s

Crew Chief Eric: play, who wants to be a Millionaire?

What was the first car that Powerflex developed something for?

James Clay: You know, that’s funny. I don’t even know that. And, and so Powerflex uk, their company started about two years before I started Bimmer World, which is our umbrella company for Powerflex, USA, I believe that. It started with BMW, [00:06:00] Volkswagen, Audi, and then some, some oddball stuff.

And I say oddball, gosh odd for us, alpha Triumph. Some of those, you know, we would call ’em historic cars, but at, at the time they were certainly more active cars and, and cars that people were modifying and, and wanted a, a quality bushing for

Jake Palladini: yeah, some other obscure stuff like Lotus. We, we offer pretty much an entire range of bushings for the Lotus Lease, the Agora, uh, some for the Esprit, I believe.

It’s a lot of weird stuff in there. Read stuff

James Clay: that the UK guys love, right?

Jake Palladini: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: so to your point, James, you know, back in the day, even when you looked at motor mounts, which were a big deal, going to urethane motor mounts, now you have companies, BFI, you have ECS putting out their own. And back in the early days for the Volkswagens, we’re talking early days is in the two thousands.

VF engineering was a big name making urethane motor mounts. There’s probably, you know, other. Bunch of others. So there’s different durometers of urethane, right? Which means the strength and the density of the urethane. What it can [00:07:00] withstand. It’s interesting when you dig into that stuff, because not all urethane components are created equal.

Does Powerflex have its own proprietary formula, their own like standards? I know there’s a purple series and a black series and different things. Do you want to kind of expand upon that and, and just talk about, you know, what makes them special?

James Clay: So you’re going right to one component of our parts, the, the urethane itself, taking a step back out of that.

Powerflex is an engineering company. I mentioned earlier that at, at the time there was a, there was a bit of whatever fits a hole, we need to pour this thing in a hole and basically take up the same space as a stock bushing. And that’s, that’s your urethane part. Powerflex approaches this differently.

Every part we do is engineered some of the basic urethane bushings. We, we would call a top half bushing. It’s a two pieces go in from either side and then a stainless steel sleeve in the middle. And it’s just a, a real general approach to a bushing. But we have a lot of more unique bushings up to some of these things that are mono ball.

Urethane mono ball, which is pretty super cool. We, we [00:08:00] also have mono balls encased in urethane. We have all kinds of tools at our disposal from the engineering standpoint to make something that is going to last well, et cetera. But the urethane specifically, yes. What we do is proprietary. In fact, it’s, we just got a surprise for one of the, one of the components that only we use in our urethane A as well.

It’s used in another industry, clothing industry for your Lycra and spandex. Interesting. It’s a small component in that, but that’s unique to us and we know that because all of a sudden in the world material shortage, it’s gotten kind of wild and hard to find that stuff. So we have a unique urethane.

It’s part of the reason we can offer a lifetime warranty because we do things a little bit differently beyond the control process and so forth in the actual manufacturing of it. The formula is unique. And then you mentioned we have different durometers, so we do have. You said a black series, which we, we have the Power Flakes black series, which is our 95 Durometer, pretty stiff stuff for a more track focused car.

If you have a track car, if it’s really hopped up, you’ll get all black series stuff. [00:09:00] And then our other series, our, our primary series is just. The Powerflex series. So it’s not that it’s purple. It could be purple, it could also be yellow, purple. Would being an 80 durometer, yellow being a 70. Durometer could be red, which is a 65, 65.

It could be black if black happens to be the right durometer for the application. So it could be that 90. So we have that full range, but again, it’s an engineered product and we need to decide per car, per location what the correct urethane. To use what, how much, um, you need. So in, in my history, early on in those, in the BMWs, the old five series, six series, these for us big heavy cars, not, you know, they’ve, they’ve added another thousand pounds to ’em in modern times, but big heavy cars and all the braking load is carried by this one bushing in a thrust arm in the front.

That thing has to be a black bushing because the amount of load you’re throwing in this thing, and, and you know, guys were modifying different series parts. There was a big [00:10:00] scramble early on when I was getting into BM BMW stuff of, well it’s gonna live in this location. Turns out Powerflex does. But in that location.

Needs to be a black 90 durometer bushing.

Crew Chief Eric: Makes sense. That leads me to another question in some other industries related to the performance side of, of the automotive world that we all live in. When there isn’t a part available, I’m sure the catalog is extremely large for Powerflex, but when there isn’t a part available, is there the ability to send it in and say, Hey, can you create this for my, you know, 70 8:00 AM C Rambler or whatever, you know, I’m just making this up.

Is that an available option with Powerflex or is it gotta be on the shelf? It’s gotta be something that everybody wants.

Jake Palladini: It’s not a lot of custom work being done, but if there’s enough demand, we’ve seen it in the past where they’ve actually taken that into consideration. Say, Hey, nobody else offers this solution for this.

It might as well be us. I don’t remember exactly which model Porsche, but it’s a uh, Porsche rear trailing arm bushing that you cannot buy by [00:11:00] itself from the factory. You have to buy the entire trailing arm, which will cost you upwards of a thousand something dollars. When you could just now come through us, replace the bushing, which is 99% of the time, the only thing that goes bad, and save yourself a lot of money and have a way better product with a lifetime warranty, which is something you’re also not gonna get out of an OEM product.

If there’s enough demand for something like that, then, then yeah, they’ll uh, certainly look into it.

James Clay: We have some one-off parts like that. We have, we have something for a Jeep Grand Wagoner that’s, or a Grand Cherokee. That’s, that’s a little bit odd for us in general. We got over 10,000 SKUs, so if we don’t have the part for your car, I’d be surprised if it fits our model.

So, you know, your example was a MC Rambler. That’s probably not a Powerflex car, so probably for you, unless you had a hundred other buddies that thought that was a really good idea, we’re not in the business of. Custom solutions. We’re in the business of production and we have to be, to be able to produce at the quality we do.

We have to have some [00:12:00] volume to be able to make molds that we can spend as much money as we spend on molds to be able to produce the level of product that we produce. So there, you know, I’d love to say we do everything, but we certainly, the market we serve, we cover it extremely well. And if there’s something we don’t cover, that’s a surprise to us.

We picked up 2000 twos, BM bmw, 2000 twos. We, we got a lot of requests for those and we said, you know, it is a whatever, 50-year-old car, 60-year-old car. Sure if there’s enough interest, we will do that for you.

Crew Chief Eric: You got me really excited there because you said Jeep Grand Cherokee, which is what I was actually hinting towards because I need some bushing upgrades on my Jeep Grand Cherokee.

So now that I know you got something, I’m definitely gonna be looking in the catalog to see what’s there. So you gotta

James Clay: make sure it’s the right one though.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true. That’s true.

James Clay: It’s weird that Jeep Grand Cherokee does stick out. I mean, we make one part for one series of that vehicle one production series and stuff like that happens with Powerflex because nobody else makes a part that will hold up.

So the fact that we can engineer a solution that we have a lifetime [00:13:00] warranty, but it doesn’t matter about the warranty. We have the lifetime warranty because we make a part that’s a lifetime part. So our ability to make a true lifetime part for some applications, and if nobody in the aftermarket has been able to do it, then sometimes we raise our hand and say, sure, we’ll knock that out.

Jake and I were talking a little bit before this, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to London, or I think this was more prevalent maybe 10, 15 years ago, when they had all those black London taxi cabs, because they had about a hundred thousand of them out on the road. They had a power steering rack bushing that failed about every six to eight months.

And given the number of those things out on the road, and of course the, you know, the constantly running around, that was a huge expense. So they called Powerflex and said, we can’t solve this problem. Can you make a bushing for us? So we made exactly one run of bushings to cover all the cars and never had to make ’em again.

So again, if you happen to have a London taxi cab, we would have that unique one bushing for you because we are the guys. In the world that can solve a problem.

Crew Chief Eric: Nice. So, you know, that’s really awesome to get the background of the [00:14:00] company and you know, for those of you that are listening, that are using Powerflex, you know, it’s good stuff.

I mean, I highly recommend it. It’s in our Volkswagen, BMW and Miata builds. If you go to our website, it’s always listed on our buildout sheets, especially for the Volkswagens struck mounts on those cars are notoriously terrible in the fourth generations. And the same is true of the real trailing on bushings.

Now, I’m probably throwing out for the new listener a bunch of terms that they don’t understand. All of this stuff is related. To suspension. And what’s really cool about the Powerflex website is they have an what they call an alignment one oh one page where they kind of go through all of the terminology and, and different pieces and, and parts of how your suspension works.

And so we wanted to spend some time with Jake and James and talk about this so you guys could learn more about the dark art and kind of black magic of setting up a car and what’s involved in that and how those powerflex components play into that. So I think we really need to start off with, you know, that classic rule of three, the three big things we always hear about in suspension and alignment, which is camber, [00:15:00] castor, and tow.

And you’ve probably heard about Canberra the most. So let’s start with that and unpack that idea and then dive into the other two and then learn about how they relate to each other.

James Clay: Alright. I feel like I can talk about this stuff and, and my, uh, viewpoint is more from track, car, race, car point of view, and certainly, and I, and I can relate that back to street stuff, but that’s, that’s my foundation or that’s my expertise is in the, really in the racing world.

So, you know, it’s simply put, camber is the angle of your wheel, tire to the ground or, or how it is related perpendicularly to the ground. Um, and basically defines what your contact patch is on your tire when it’s loaded, when your car is loaded in a turn. So I suppose that’s when it matters the most. So if I had a car with zero camber, that means that my tire is standing straight up in the air.

That means that I have a perfectly even contact patch left to right when I’m driving in a straight line or when I’m braking in a straight line or putting power down in a [00:16:00] straight line. So if I’m a drag guy, I wanna have all that contact patch in a straight line. If I wanna stop my best. Zero camera is fantastic because I have all my contact patch when I’m in a straight line.

But if I’m driving this thing on the track, autocross, whatever it is, and I plan to turn a little bit, once the suspension starts loading and moving, then the whole thing changes a little bit. I need negative camera so that I basically can roll my car, my platform, up onto that camera. So maybe a number that rings in my head is three degrees or so.

Three degrees up front. Negative camber. That means the top of the tire’s tilted towards the center of the car. And if I, if I had a protractor, I guess that’s the tool I would use in. School, I could measure three degrees between where the tire is now leaned inward to where it would otherwise be vertical.

When I load the car, when I turn, then that loads the car essentially to straight, which is how I think about what maybe an optimum camra is. Of course, that’s tire dependent. It’s car chassis dependent. It’s suspension design, of course, but once, [00:17:00] once, we’re talking about aftermarket parts here, which certainly is one aspect of Powerflex.

When I’m thinking about aftermarket parts on a car. If I have soft springs or Stockish Springs, then. My car’s gonna roll a lot more, and so I need more camber for it to roll up onto, versus if I have stiff springs, I, I reduce that roll a fair amount. And then I’m thinking more about the tire flex and so forth.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And then every bushing in the suspension, whether it be a struct mount, a control arm, a sway bar, bushing, all adds deflection. Now I think a lot of people probably don’t realize there’s also deflection in the wheel bearing, depending on the setup. Right? Front wheel drives notorious for the hub and wheel bearings, you know, flexing during hard cornering and things like that.

All of these things affect the camber of the vehicle, and that offsets your contact match.

Crew Chief Brad: Now, we’ve talked a lot about negative camber, and I, I’m seeing on the site, you, you wanna dial in some negative camera for better cornering, uh, capabilities. But is there ever an instance where you would want to have positive camera

Crew Chief Eric: clown car?

Crew Chief Brad: There’s a specific reason why I’m asking too, but I, I’ll [00:18:00] wait to hear the answer

James Clay: from my foundation, uh, which is modern cars. There’s one minor instance. Well, I say in my world, there’s one minor instance. For some reason in old cars, and I don’t know the, the suspension geometry in those older vehicles, but positive camra used to be a thing positive.

Camra used to be in a thing in like the whatever, twenties, thirties, that era car maybe. But again, don’t hold me to that because I don’t really know those cars. But when I think about positive camra and I say, well, Camra is needed so that when your car loads in a turn, that it, it can roll up on it. And, and a, a lot of times that means that I’m thinking about that outside tire, but if I’m only turning one direction.

Then it also matters what the inside I, I don’t have to optimize for left turns and right turns. I can just think about optimizing more for one direction turn. So certainly our friends in na, NASCAR and the dirt world and all, all that who are always turning left have a fair amount of negative camera in their, in their right side.

They have positive camera in their [00:19:00] left side because when that car loads, again, it’s, it’s loading up now. That’s the NASCAR world. But there’s also this little track up in Connecticut that we go to Limerock Park, which has one left hand turn and then everything else is right. So we would sometimes, um, sacrifice our setup or consider like a zero camera or maybe a little bit.

More of a positive camera on that, on that right side. Again, just because we’re, we’re gonna sacrifice one turn to be faster in seven others at that specific track. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: And what you said about vintage cars is absolutely correct. And it has to do with the geometry of the suspension and the springs that they used to use and the real, real early cars.

I mean, you were talking about, you know, opposed leaf springs where they went perpendicular to the body line of the, of the center line of the car. So they almost acted like a sway bar, and then they decided, oh, let’s rotate them. So they’re parallel to the body. You know, you really didn’t see the changeover until, I’d say the late fifties, early sixties, especially out of Lotus, because, you know, uh, Colin Chapman stole the design for McPherson and modified it and call it his own.

But [00:20:00] until the McPherson suspension was created, you had these. Odd positions in suspension geometries because we were still figuring it out. And then the McPherson setup became standard front and rear on a lot of cars. And then, you know, now double wishbones, it’s, it’s kind of changed the dynamic again, you know, all these kinds of things.

So to your point, I think it goes along with the evolution and as we’ve progressed and we’ve made giant changes in suspension, geometry and, and the mechanics of it, we’ve gone more and more negative Canberra now. Not stance, bro. Negative camber, no offense. So those guys are listening. Know, eight, nine degrees of Camra looks cool when you’re parked, but doesn’t really work too well on the track.

What do you think about that, James? Well,

James Clay: I’ll tell you, we, anything anybody does with a car is our thing. So that’s, that’s, uh, you know, while I don’t currently drive a stance car, honestly, I appreciate what people do. I appreciate what, uh, what limits people push. So, you know, a stance car isn’t necessarily my thing, but.

Guys, I mean, stylistically,

Crew Chief Eric: stylistically they look cool, the wheels tucked up [00:21:00] under whatever. But we often find it really funny when the Stan Pro guys, you know, we use that term lovingly. Alright, let’s just put it that way. You know, when they do come to an autocross or a track for the first time, they start to realize cam’s gotta start to come way more positive.

To get that car to actually turn and do something on track that is, let’s say, amenable to the result we’re looking for.

James Clay: I’ll, I’ll tell you though, and it’s interesting, I, I think about oddball exceptions to certain rules. We were racing, touring cars in, uh, the early two thousands and those touring cars with the specific tire that we were on, which is, which was a street drive tire, not a, not a true racing slick.

We consistently had six plus degrees of Canberra, and that’s in a rear wheel drive car. And some of the front wheel guys had. Eight to 10 super odd situation where we had a, a tire with a very soft sidewall, which gave, so it, you know, the, you had to support that with more camra, you know, and maybe that’s how all this stuff derived.

Anyway, you used to see these touring cars with tons of cam. So that’s the race look. And that’s what, that’s how [00:22:00] I want my car look,

Crew Chief Eric: might be outside of Camra. You got two more components to our rule of three, right? You’ve got castor and tow and they’re all actually related to each other. So let’s talk about Castor for a minute.

James Clay: I didn’t write this part of the Powerflex website, I don’t think. Maybe I chimed in on it, but, and I can be wrong on this stuff. I, and I’m, I’m pretty content being wrong. I am lots of days, lots of times. So, um, so castor, I, I would call castor. Whenever I say castor, the next thing I always say is. Dynamic Camber.

So I, I think McPherson struck car because that’s, that’s what I deal with for the castor can be in other types of suspension design, but basically it’s, well, I’ll take the suspension out of it. It’s how much camber is gained when you turn your wheel tire package left or right off of center. And so, and, and why I say it’s dynamic, camber castor is awesome because if I have a car with enough built-in castor, first of all, it self centers when it go, when it drives down the road.

So that’s, that’s kind of nice. The, a nice thing, a nice streetcar thing about. Caster, but also it [00:23:00] gives me the ability to have that straight line acceleration, tire loading contact patch, that straight line braking where I’d like less camber, maybe I don’t want have so much camber built in because I want that better when my wheel is straight contact patch.

But then when I turn the wheel, if I have a lot of cam in the car, then I’m adding the camber that I didn’t have when my wheel was straight to when I need it the most when my wheel is turned. So for BMWs, we like a ton of caster in the front and that is kind of. What helps us fight some of the problems inherent with the McPherson strut design, or in my opinion, inherent with a McPherson design where you, you don’t gain camera, if anything, you often lose it, uh mm-hmm When you, when you load your car.

Crew Chief Eric: And that’s ’cause of the, well, let’s call it what it is, a single point of failure and that strut bearing, right, that the power flex bushings try to overcome because you have a massive amount of torque load being put on a single point at the top of that strut tower. If you had a double wishbone, you have three points to mount to.

So it’s a much sturdier design, but it takes up a lot more space. And you kind of see it on the [00:24:00] more exotic cars that are built, you know, around tube frame. You’re not gonna see that around, or a tube frame or mono cock design. You’re not gonna see that on your typical front wheel drive Honda. They’re just, that takes up way too much space.

You know, it would also be 12 feet wide to make it all work. So I get your point. So how does tow play into the equation,

James Clay: man? What to say about tow to tow is where your. Tire is pointed, left to right, independently of what is going on on the other side of the axle. So if I have my steering wheel centered and my car is going straight.

If I have tow out, that means that both of my tires are now pointing out. They’re almost fighting each other given that they’re pointing out if I have tow in. Both front tires are pointed in towards each other, so a car with tow out to me can be a bit nervous because you have both front tires initiating a turn, and so your car is kind of telling.

Which way you want me to go? Which way? Which way, which way? And it’s, it is just kind of nervous as you drive it along when it’s taken to an extreme. But of course sometimes [00:25:00] we want something that’s nervous or in a better word, or a, or a more compelling word, agile, ready to perform. And so I like tow out because tow out is a tool that gets your car pointed for you.

Tow in is in, in strictest sense, tow in neither tire’s, really excited about doing anything. And so it’s, it’s a little bit more benign. Your, your car with tow in is pretty content to just go in a straight line. ’cause both tires are, are kind of working that way. Now that said, in my street world, and especially when we start talking about all these things that are related, right?

So if I have a car that I set up for street use that has more camra in it, because I want that, I want it, I want it to perform. One of the bad things about tow is that because your tires aren’t rolling straight unloaded, they’re kind of pointed a direction that’s fighting each other. You start to lose some rubber, right?

If your tires are working against each other, something’s gotta take that hit, and so it’s tire wear, and so you start killing tires. So a lot of times I think about [00:26:00] zero in my toe for a street car, just so I’m not beating up my tires so much. When I think about tow on the racetrack, I said earlier, maybe tow out makes the car more eager and ready to perform more.

Eager to go into a turn.

Crew Chief Eric: I call it. I call it dirty.

James Clay: Yeah, there you go. It’s, yeah, it can be, and again, we’re, we’re talking powerflex, right? So Powerflex bushings. Go on, streetcar. So we’re, we’re talking about streetcar stuff or streetcar based stuff. Sedans, we’re not talking about formula cars or, or things that are more exotic.

There are some absolute truths in sedans that aren’t absolute in the automotive world or the racing world, but some, some absolute truths in sedans. There’s always a compromise. It’s never optimized for track performance. There’s so many things, whether it be using a McPherson strep because it’s cost and packaging, and that’s the reason to do that.

Or if we’re taking some sacrifices for the street drivability, how do I want this thing to perform on the street? Because, you know, us people that are, that are out there flogging these things on the track. We’re the, we’re the strong minority. We’re not who they designed the car for necessarily. They might give us [00:27:00] some good stuff, but they didn’t say, let’s make this thing a track killer.

So one of the compromises, if you ever park your car in a parking lot and you like to make those tight turns, you probably want a little Ackerman built into the, to the steering. So. Ackerman is dynamic tow. So based on steering rack placement, um, I wouldn’t expect my inside tire and outside tire to necessarily turn at the same rate or same amount of angle.

So because of that Ackerman that’s built into the car, there aren’t absolute rules for what tow should be on the track or in a performance application. And sometimes a specific tire is going to want a specific thing also. So whether it’s the Ackerman of the car or what the tire wants. And so there is, to me, there is no rule on what I want for tow.

I, I can say, yeah. For sure I’m gonna want negative camra and I’m gonna want about this much Every time I test a, a new race, car and tire, we have to figure out whether it likes to tow out or tow in. Probably tow out. That’s probably the, the slight nod, but sometimes tires like to tow in.

Crew Chief Eric: So I’ve heard that there’s [00:28:00] always different instances and, and to your point, setups for different tracks.

Like you were talking about lime rock and whatever, but maybe they’re wives tales. Maybe it’s, you know, unproven science, I don’t know. But I’ve also heard that tow out helps the car turn in quicker. And tow in is designed for stability, especially high horsepower rear world drive cars or nine elevens, I’m gonna say that again.

Or nine elevens keeping them under control. So a little bit of tow in, in the rear helps stabilize the rear end of the car, whereas tow out in the front gives you quicker turn in and like you said, sacrificing the opposite side of the car because it’s also trying to go, you know, turn the other way a little bit going into the corner.

James Clay: Yeah, I think that’s generally correct and that’s, you know, that’s, that’s kind of what I would default to for setting up a street car. If I wasn’t zeroing the front. I always add a little bit of tow in on the rear of a car because I, I do want that stability if I’m at the racetrack, I have to start making choices, right?

I’ve, I’ve got a box of tools and depending on what type of car I’m driving, I could have a big toolbox or a small toolbox. If I have a, a [00:29:00] pure stock car, I don’t have a lot of tools in my toolbox. I have tire pressure. For the most part, if I have a race car, I may have a bunch of spring adjustments, height adjustments, shock adjustments, geometry adjustments.

My toolbox is a lot bigger. Yes, tow in in the rear can stabilize the car. When I’m thinking about racetrack as well, we talked about tow in, tow out the, the less of either that there is, the faster the thing rolls in a straight line. So I’m also careful, especially on a track with long straits, I consider how much I’m willing to drag the tires down those straits and how much speed I’m sacrificing.

But then there’s also situations, you know, I’ve been at the racetrack in. No matter how big my toolbox is, I can’t get this stupid car not to initiate the turn necessarily. That’s, that’s a front end job, right? The front end. You turn the wheel, it’s initiating the turn, but once I’m in the turn and loaded, I can’t get the car to rotate.

Is the tow in that I have in the rear to stabilize the car, the thing I want or would a little tow out or a little less of that toe in whatever, and we’ve run tow out in the rear. Sometimes you just have to have [00:30:00] that tool to turn the car. Same thing, and, and you’re, you’re dead on in the front. Yeah, sure.

I think that the, the tow out typically makes a car a little bit more darty or a little bit more active right at that initial turn initiation point, but I can usually. Get my car to initiate the turn. And again, I have other tools in the toolbox. I have a sway bar, a, a shock and some other things often on a hand hand brake.

You know, we,

Crew Chief Eric: we got those two. Yeah. Rip that hand brake. Go

James Clay: for it. Yeah. There’s, there’s other tools in the toolbox to get that immediate initial turn in. And a lot of times what I’m thinking about is how do I make this car get all the way through the corner, right? And then I’m starting to think about balance a car.

So I really think about tow, personally. I think about tow more about what’s happening mid corner and steady state once things are loaded up. And that’s why it comes to that Ackerman question. What, what’s the Ackerman built into the car? What does the tire want? And then therefore, what maximizes grip midterm.

Crew Chief Eric: No, and that’s a really good point you bring up. And I think what many people may not realize is the three, you know, the triumvirate we’ve been talking to here, Canberra, castor and [00:31:00] tow apply to the rear as much as they do to the front. But the other thing that’s important to realize is that, you know, you mentioned about adjustability of suspensions and people will go out and buy all it’s really cool components, whether it be dual reservoir olins or muons or whatever they are.

Or you know, it’s a guy with a set of coney oranges, you know, you know, it’s all over the map. Progressive springs, coil overs, you know, dual coil overs and all this kind of stuff. But the one thing that’s always funny is the guy that’s like, well, I’m gonna go change the ride height of the car. And doesn’t do.

The rest of the math doesn’t realize that changing the height even, uh, the smallest amount actually changes. Those other three things we’ve been talking about, the caster, the camra and the tow are suddenly outta whack. And unless you have the ability to realign the car on the spot, the change you just made probably made your car worse.

James Clay: Yeah. Ride height is a good tuning tool. It’s great on the protein when we, we have a setup pad and we, okay, we change the height, throw the car on the pad. See, you know, get the, get everything else right. How much things change, [00:32:00] of course, depends on the suspension design. It also depends on what window you’re working in within that suspension design.

I can tell you on A BMW, one of my favorite tuning tools, and this is when I’m dragging a car to the track myself, it’s a race car. I’m gonna get under the, it was a street car. I wouldn’t get under it. I’d just say, ah, well I’ll just drive it differently. But given that I’m gonna do a little bit of work here, but I’m doing the work, I don’t have the guys on the team doing the work.

I’m not gonna do a lot of work. Raising and lowering the rear works out pretty well for us because given that suspension design, there’s pretty much no camber change and pretty much no tow change within the window that I’m working in. Right. And height adjustments, which is, you know, five mil, 10 mil max, something like that.

10 mil would be super big. However, on the front of that car, totally wouldn’t touch it. You know, I don’t know if it’s gonna mess with a cam that much. Definitely gonna mess with my toe. Yeah, it’s, it’s one of the things that I consider for sure, we talked a lot about these three things, the triumvirate, but we’re, we’re also talking when I have my powerflex hat on, when I think Well, and how does [00:33:00] Powerflex relate to this?

I think a lot of times people consider these as. Measured numbers, they are right. You, you measure camra, that’s super simple. You measure castor a little bit more complicated process, but you, but it’s a measurable thing. But what you’re doing is measuring these things and optimizing your car while it’s sitting still.

That’s not the real world or not the one that we live in, right? Because we don’t care what the car does when it’s sitting still. We we’re men of action. We wanna see what this thing does when we’re flogging it, when it’s fully loaded, et cetera. So that’s a different set of numbers. Sure. We we’re using what it does, sitting still on a setup pad or an alignment rack as a baseline for what that is.

That’s not really what we’re seeing on track. You know, if I make a camera change, I’ll note the difference on track. The easiest way to, to note that or to, to keep record of that is what it’s doing statically. But what I care about is what it’s doing on track from the powerflex side of things, we do have adjustable bushings.

We have a range of some pretty cool parts to, to add. Canberra, take away cam. You know, add, add a full range of adjustment. I, I say Canberra, [00:34:00] but more things, role center, things we haven’t even gotten into. We do have that range of bushings, but more importantly, and in every bushing we make, when you have a bushing that is stiffer than stock.

That has more control than stock. When you’re in that loaded up operation of the car, you keep the suspension from moving and flexing as much. If it was a race car, I’d be mono ball. I’d be straight up solid, and it would be exactly what I wanted it to be, not. I’ve, I’ve done this as a guy that also engineers and designs things.

I sometimes get put in odd situations. One of these was riding on top of a motor in a car as it drove around the parking lot at some decent speed. So I could sit there and watch things move and so forth. I probably could have done that with a GoPro, but it was

Crew Chief Eric: more fun the way you did

James Clay: it. It was more fun.

It, yeah, the, the guy driving the car loved it. But you know, in parking lot speed. So we’re talking like 10, 15 miles an hour. If I’m really working hard, you can see the top of a McPherson strep, for example. You can see that thing move a quarter inch plus, which is a huge amount of movement. So if I think [00:35:00] about, well, I’m gonna add 0.3 degrees of cam, and that’s maybe an eighth of an inch or something like that of movement to get that angle change and this thing’s moving around a quarter inch while it’s being loaded at 15 miles an hour.

You know it’s gonna be max load when you’re on the racetrack. The Camra is who knows what. So not ideal. So having bushings that are stiffer, we’re a street track product, so they’re stiff. If they’re black series, they’re, they’re all stiffer. But in the regular series, we add as much stiffness as is reasonable within some clever tricks to make it so that this thing doesn’t beat me to death.

Right? That’s why road cars aren’t made to be the stiffest things possible. They’re made to fit this nice balance and maybe be your Porsche is gonna be a stiffer balance than your whatever your Audi, S-U-V-S-A-V, whatever, whatever that is. It’s made for a little bit different target market. Either way, they’re not made to be super, super stiff, which is what we would want for performance.

So we can achieve those balances sometimes with a properly designed part. And one that we’re willing to spend a little bit more money [00:36:00] for. So that’s, you know, we’re also not making $5 OEM bushings. Our stuff may be 10 x the cost, but it’s worth it. You get kind of more of everything.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And there’s give and take in all of this.

And I think it, it funnels up into the concept of suspension tuning everybody. I think they do it by feel more than anything. Right. And to your point, it’s very hard to say, how much is my strut mount deflecting at 15 mile an hour versus 60 mile an hour versus 80 mile an hour, or whatever it might be. So I wish there were more sensors, I wish there was more empirical data that we could collect as a, you know, kind of a layman versus what the pros have available to them.

You know, all the type of telemetry that they’re able to collect from every corner of the car. So some of it is, is black magic. Right. In in some respects, would you say, is there a formula to follow certain things that guys and gals should be doing versus other upgrades to the suspension to. Get to that tuning stage before we kind of get into the deeper talks about, you know, alignments and, and, and [00:37:00] bump and squat and all these other kinds of kind of advanced features.

James Clay: In the introduction, we talked about, you know, a three-year-old car drives way differently than a new car because things have already started to break in, settle in. I think what a lot of people, as, as a pure starting point, make sure you know what you’re starting with and I think people automatically make some assumptions that, Hey, I have this car and it’s, it’s like black box.

This, this car is always this thing. You start with basic maintenance, right? If you’re, if you’re gonna take a car out on a track, you at least know what oil you have in the engine, right? You’re, yeah, you’re doing some basic maintenance to stabilize your platform. The same for the suspension. You need to first just make sure that the stuff that stock, if you plan to keep it stock.

It’s still working like it was intended or some reasonably close version of bushings. Do wear fast powerflex lifetime warranty? Well, it’s because we’re spending a lot more to make a bushing than the factory is when they, when they’re making 30,000 car sets for a year of whatever model car those pennies add up.

So they’re saving some money here and [00:38:00] there where they can, even if you have a Porsche, they’re saving some money and there’s an accountant involved in building your car like it or not knowing that you have parts that are working properly. And then really it depends on car model as far as what your weak parts are, what parts you need to address specifically on A BMW.

I know that the front control arm bushing is a real problem for us because it takes a lot of that load. Or depending on, on design, I speak a lot of times towards three series stuff just ’cause it’s so common. So maybe a front thrust arm bushing, again that’s taking that braking load. We’ve done GoPros on these things and you can check us out on YouTube or I think they’re link linked to our website and you can see some of that GoPro footage if there’s a bushing like those.

That has a void from the factory so that it, it’s nice and cushy for that luxury car market buyer. When you look at our GoPro video of that thing in action and see it moving a half inch plus, that’s probably one of those that you should have on your list, especially at the time of purchase of a, like a coil over suspension.

Like a powerflex bushing is a great addition to a purchase of other suspension parts. When you’re replacing your control arms that are worn [00:39:00] out, Hey, let’s replace the bushing too. When you’re upgrading the performance of the car, you’re doing coilers, you’re doing sway bars. Gosh, let’s make sure the stock stuff or the stock type stuff is working like it should, or let’s optimize it a hundred dollars in bushings for the wheel and tire to be where thought it was or where it’s supposed to be.

Totally worth the investment. Especially when you compare it to like a thousand, a 5,000, what, you know, whatever dollar coil over that you’re comparing it to.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And you know, I bring it up because we had this come across our desk recently. There’s different contingents within GTM. There’s some of us that are very intimate with, you know, Volkswagens and whatnot, and we had a guy, you know, ask us, Hey, I wanna get rid of the body roll on my, you know, 2005 Jetta diesel.

And I’m like, well first things first. What is it you want to do with the car? Is it your daily? Is it gonna be parked? Are you, he’s obviously not gonna track it or autocross it, but the thing is, what do you want to get out of the experience? Right? Going back to that tuning of the suspension, and I was like, I can recommend different things, but to your point, I’ll recommend new bushings, control arms, things like [00:40:00] that.

If you’re not ready for a car that’s about to be lowered two inches, that’s gonna ride really, really stiff. It might not be what’s best for you and for, you know, your style of driving. So. Drive other people’s cars, get a feel for what’s out there and what those combinations are like because no two cars are, are put together the same to your point.

But I think what’s interesting about this part of the conversation is for the diy, just like this guy who’s trying to put his kit together, you know, what should I buy? What should’t I buy. Some of the questions that, that I even look at from my perspective having done this for years now is what can I buy that has powerflex already in it?

Or if I’m going to do let’s say control arms, which are some of the worst jobs depending on how they’re designed, are there special tools for pressing the bushings in? ’cause it is a kind of a pain in the butt. So what’s some advice there and what are some of the components that, you know, we should be looking out for that may have Powerflex OEMed in them and we don’t know that, you know, they’re just rebranded

James Clay: a a couple of points.

[00:41:00] First of all, specific to your question, a lot of our dealers package parts together. So as Powerflex. We generally are a bushing seller, or we have, we have some pieces that are a bushing in a bracket and, and are a little bit more extensive, but our dealers who are experts in their specific mark will offer the powerflex bushing with the control arm that you need and sell it as, as a, you know, an FCP or a package or, or whatever that is.

That’s, that’s great. Those, you know, that’s, that’s why we love our dealer network. Speaking from me as a bimmer world guy and a BM BMW standpoint, we have a lot of arms with bushings available and I can provide a, a complete solution for a purchaser instead of, you know, from Powerflex. Again, we’re bushings only, you won’t find us unadvertised.

We don’t do a lot of things. We we’re proud of our brand. We, we do good work. People pay money for our brand, right? We we’re not the cheapest guys on the block. So I don’t think you find us snuck in places that nobody said, Hey, this is a powerflex part. So if you’re looking at how [00:42:00] do you get powerflex kits, get it from Powerflex, I say, we’re not the cheapest.

One thing that people should consider, and I think is so rarely considered you, you talked about control arms being a bear of a job. How many times do you wanna do that job? You know, in the BM BMW world, your control arm failed prematurely. That’s how that works. On an E 46, it failed early. If you left it long enough, it took the tie rod with it.

It all started because you’ve got this stock built to a budget control arm bushing that wore out and then allowed so much slot that it started wearing everything else out in the system. Instead of replacing that with the same OEM part and having to do it every 60,000 miles, spend the money on the Powerflex with a lifetime warranty, again, it’s not, it’s not about the warranty, it’s about the fact that we produce a lifetime part, put that powerflex part in the car, and then you won’t have to do that greasy, messy job again.

Or if you’re paying somebody to do it, you’re not gonna have to pay the 400 bucks or whatever it is for front control, just for the labor. For a front control arm, front control arm bushing, whatever else you have [00:43:00] to do there. And let’s not forget the alignment that you have to do every time you replace suspension bushings.

Jake Palladini: To that point, we do offer some kits, like he mentioned with a bracket around it that’s already been been engineered by Powerflex. Like for, uh, mark five, mark six, mark seven golf. The front control arm bushings, we offer a standard bushing that’s a standard geometry replacement. We also offer a kit with anti lift properties and castor offset.

It’s like a degree of castor offset that already comes with its own bracket, that power flex in the UK machines in-house, um, and anodize and everything like that. We offer a similar kit for an R 35 GTR that they developed with Litchfield Motors over there. And we also offer other kits that come with their own brackets and such.

So you don’t have to do. As much work. Another good BMW related thing, E 36 and I believe E 30, front control arm bushings. Although our bushing does not come pressed into the bracket there, it doesn’t require a press to install. Once you get the old [00:44:00] bushing out, you can push that thing in with your hands.

I’ve done it a hundred times. It takes 10 seconds to do once you get the old bushing out.

Crew Chief Eric: I wish they were all that way. Let me tell you, don’t we all. I have done so many fourth gen Volkswagen control arms. I don’t even want to talk about it. It’s a nightmare every time I do ’em.

Jake Palladini: Yeah, a lot of our bushings are like that.

The, he mentioned the top hat bushings earlier. A two piece design that you push one half in from one side. Yep. You push the other half in from the other side and you just jam a sleeve in the middle of it for the bolt. That doesn’t require a press to do at most. It might require a vice or a C clamp, but you don’t have to take that thing somewhere with a hydraulic press and, and hope that it’s enough to jam it in there.

It’s something that just about anybody can do.

James Clay: You don’t have to use the special factory tool that you don’t have. You’re gonna have to rent or buy or whatever. You don’t have to use that because of the design of a lot of our bushings, you also don’t need that tool to get the old stuff out, which would be the other use of it.

Right. If I have a rear subframe that I really don’t want to take off the car and take over to the press, et cetera. ’cause [00:45:00] all the other stuff I, you know, that makes that a 10 hour job instead of a, you know, a two hour job. You know, I just drop it some inches, four inches or whatever, find the trustee Sawzall and just get out there and cut out the bushings.

And then if there’s a sleeve, you just take a hammer and a chisel, pop the sleeve out. And then the powerflex bushings just go in so easily in most situations. Of course, there’s, there’s ones that, unfortunately the design of the car means that we can’t make them like that. But certainly if ease of install is a potential factor, we nail that.

Jake Palladini: Another interesting thing, I, I just wanna throw this in here, ’cause he mentioned that you don’t have to be super careful if you don’t have to have that tool to, to put the bushing back in. I’ve seen a lot of people that set them on fire and let them burn out, which is amazing to me. Whoever thought of doing that first, I just wanna give them a salute.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s better than the approach I take, which is keeping Schwab in tools of business. Right. All those,

James Clay: yeah. We, we don’t tell people to set things on fire, but there’s obvious risk to that. And gosh, the [00:46:00] plume of black smoke is, yeah, no, no. Horrific, but.

Jake Palladini: Effective. I’m sure it smells really bad and I would never recommend doing it, but I’ve seen videos of people doing it and it’s kind of funny to watch.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, as we go back to talking about the dark art of suspension tuning, you mentioned a couple times already, you gotta get an alignment. You gotta get an alignment and you know, most of us are probably used to, well I can go to the local shop and get an alignment for 30, 70, a hundred bucks. But is that really the alignment that we want after we’ve done, let’s say a full bushing redo on the car, let’s talk about the differences between a, like a standard two-wheel alignment versus doing a full fledged four-wheel alignment.

And what doing that type of work would give us or, or yield us in the, in the long run.

James Clay: I’ll tell you fir, first of all, even when we don’t replace parts, you should do an alignment. It’s crazy if on a typical car with a few links, and I’m thinking like BMW five link rear, if I loosened all those bolts. Then re-tighten them.

My settings are gonna be obviously different just because there’s enough slop and multiply it by all the bolts [00:47:00] that you have. Things change when you have your car apart and put it back together. Absolutely. Do an alignment. I, I think it’s a super common error. People don’t think about that. I just lowered my car, put on some lowering springs.

Wow. 500 miles later I wore my tires out. Why is that? Well, every time you, you do any sort of suspension, work on your car, get an alignment. It’s worth the money. Now I say it’s worth the money, but sometimes I question that and it based and, and not as a general principle based on what you’re getting.

Right? If I think about it, you know, this is a little bit foreign to me, so I’m sure you’re gonna be more experienced than I am, but if I take my car to an alignment shop and get a two wheel alignment, my, my front end a line, I think all they do on most cars, because most cars don’t have that camera adjustment, most cars don’t have castor adjustment.

Maybe there’s, we call ’em crash mounts, crash parts that the factory offers to change ’em, you know, 0.5 degrees or something like that. But there’s really no adjustment available. Powerflex has some options there, so you can add that certainly. So what are they doing on that front end alignment? They’re changing the [00:48:00] length of my tie rods and getting my toes straightened out, and they’re gonna call it a front end alignment and say, this is what the computer says about your car.

Good to go. To be fair, that tow is what’s gonna kill your tires. If you lower your car and you know, 500 miles later you won’t be disappointed. But, you know, I don’t think you get much from that when you go for a full four wheel alignment. A, a car is four tires to the ground, right? It matters what all four tires do.

I don’t, I don’t think thinking about just what my front end is doing is a super smart, systematic approach because we’re dealing with the system a lot of times. I don’t necessarily see even a four wheel alignment from just a standard alignment rack again. Unless you have those adjustable bushings and adjustable parts really doing much, you’re often, and again, depending on the suspension design, you may not even have no adjustments.

You may have no adjustments in the rear of the car other than just give a read out of what this is because you don’t have a tie rod, you, you don’t. That’s a tie. Rod by definition is, is gonna be a tow adjustment in the front. So is a four wheel alignment worth it if you don’t have any adjustable suspension?

[00:49:00] Parts either from the aftermarket or built in this to the suspension of your car. You know,

Crew Chief Eric: I think you’ve hit something that that’s really interesting there. To your point, the general alignment shops are gonna make your car go straight, let’s, let’s boil it down to that, right? And, and you’re on your merry way and you paid for this alignment and you’re like, cool.

The car goes straight and the steering wheel is straight and it’s, I can let go of the, you know, I can let go 60 mile an hour, no problem. But I think one thing in all of that, in the four wheel alignment, if a guy really knows what he’s doing, and this goes back to another thing, you know, the guys with the front wheel drives, oh, the, the back is just with the car.

It keeps the rear end from dragging the ground. The one important thing that they can do on those machines in a general alignment shop is they can. Check the thrust angle, which most people don’t realize is the distance of the front wheels to the back wheels and how straight they are in a square shape.

Like you said, you’re back there tooling around, maybe you just change trailing arm bushings. Your rear end could be cocked. So you’re right, your camra adjustment, your caster adjustment can’t [00:50:00] change. The tow is fixed by the factory because maybe there’s no tie rod to your point, but now your thrust angle is off.

So actually the car is, is wiggling, you know, kind of walking down the road and, and the classic is those old pickup trucks that you see, the bed is straight and the wheels are totally, you know, cocked to the side and you’re like, how is this thing even going down the road? Because nobody checked the thrust angle.

And it’s something you should ask for when you’re in alignment Shop is please check this because they can do it on those machines. Yeah. At least you get your money’s worth if you know what to ask for.

James Clay: Fair enough. And I, I think as enthusiasts, which we all are, right, we wouldn’t be listening to all of us Yammer on if we didn’t care about what we were doing here.

But as enthusiasts, we, you know, the machines have the capability you need to ask for it to your point, but you also need a technician with the capability and the, and the care. Yes. Who’s also an enthusiast. So I think it’s awesome when people do their own work. We, you know, huge numbers of our customers do their own work.

But even if you’re gonna do your own work, and if this is outside of the scope, right? Everybody has their threshold. Am I gonna get into my [00:51:00] engine? Well, that’s beyond me. Am I gonna. Align my car. Well, it’s beyond the tools that I have. What you know, whatever the reason that you’ve passed your threshold of what you’re personally gonna do.

Having a shop that’s a knowledgeable shop, that’s a capable shop. Does performance work, race work, cares more than just sending this thing down the road straight or not crabbing or, you know what, with to the thrust alignment. That’s a, that’s an important resource and certainly a good relationship to have.

Crew Chief Eric: You do get to a point though, as you advance as a driver and, and your technical skills, and if you are working on your own car, you know, going back to these suspension tuning and these alignments, I got to the point myself where a, I got tired of loading the car up, finding a shop that would take it, put it up on the machine, and here I’m gonna blow another a hundred bucks.

’cause I made another change to the suspension is to learn how to do a string alignment and getting the appropriate stuff to do it yourself. I’ve done plenty of string alignments at the track for my buddies when it’s like, Hey, car’s outta whack doesn’t seem right. All right, let’s throw it on the, you know, the slip plates, let’s get it measured out and you know, 15, 20 minutes later, the car’s tracking the way they want it to and you go [00:52:00] about your business.

So yeah, I just saved them a hundred bucks. But on the same token, it’s making those minute changes. That you can do and you can learn. And there’s a lot of really great tips. I actually learned how to do string alignment from an E 30 pro solo autocrosser. He is like, this is how I do it. I set my car up at every event and it was some neat little tricks to make it fast and efficient, and that was, you know, worthwhile and I’ll, I’ll try to remember to share that video as part of this, this episode.

I’ll go dig that up. But you know, it’s things like that that you can learn. Now, doing thrust angle, you’re not gonna be able to do that yourself. You should put it up a machine. You have to have a baseline. And that’s what I guess I’m getting at is you gotta pay for it at least once. And like you were saying, James is having that ledger, having those numbers, you know, going back to the pit and knowing where your baseline is supposed to be.

You can always work from that and you can always adjust from that. So make that part of your build and part of the resume of the car is what are those numbers? And when I tell other guys with similar cars, this is what you need to start with. Then adjust for your driving style. Right. And tune the suspension to how you drive.

Not how I drive, but [00:53:00] at least start with my base numbers.

James Clay: Yep. Absolutely. Makes sense.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, there’s some other things that we could talk about, you know, bump and squat and all those kind of things. But there’s one I really wanna touch on and it’s roll center because I think it’s something that people don’t sometimes totally understand, but we argue about it a lot.

So I’m gonna get your take on roll center and maybe we’ll bat this one back and forth a little bit.

James Clay: Hmm.

Crew Chief Eric: Roll center.

Jake Palladini: We have um, we have a roll center adjustment kit for R 53 Mini Cooper. It’s, it just. Pushes your roll center, I think it adjusts it by like 10, 15 millimeters or something.

James Clay: And I imagine we have pieces that are like adjust to anti dive or something like that.

So I, that has to have an effect on roll center. So to me, roll center is, is most typically adjusted by ride height, changing, you know, if you have a coil over spring set up, you can change the height of the car, which changes the, the angle of the arms as they, you know, relative to the ground. And then it changes your, changes your role center in the racing world.

We also, we can add parts and, [00:54:00] uh, that change role center, typically we’re always going in one direction, right? We, if I think about it, we’re, um, in, in the powerflex world, which again is sedans that we’re designed for street use that we’re now using at the track, et cetera, we’re usually lowering the cars and then we’re coming to correct the role center back to before it was lowered.

Two inches, three inches, you know, whatever, whatever the number is to get the look we want, et cetera.

Crew Chief Eric: Does it apply equally to all cars or is it all based on the setup? And I know this is kind of a leading question, but I I just want to go there.

James Clay: What do you mean? Does it apply equally to all cars?

Crew Chief Eric: So, okay, I’ll, I’ll put it this way.

I’ve gone back and forth with people on this about, especially front wheel drives, because it’s not the most common thing in racing. You know, we always wanna go with that front engine rear drive or nine 11 platform. Rear wheel drive is the king of racing, right? But there’s plenty of argument to say front wheel drives are equally as competitive, you know, touring car and whatever.

And they can be made to go very fast. But a lot of the techniques that are used are counterintuitive to what everybody uses on a, on a standard platform, let’s [00:55:00] call it that. Mm-hmm. You know, I’ve gotten into debates with people about the role center. It’s like, oh, your role center is, is basically under the pavement.

And I’m like, well, okay. Theoretically, yes. However, let’s talk about front wheel drive specifically, or fun wheel drive is we like to call them on the show. If you want to induce lift throttle over steer, where should your roll center be? Mm, below the ground. Why? Because I need my car level under acceleration, but I need it to dive under load to pick the rear end up so it can rotate because again, the rear tires are just keeping me from dragging on the pavement.

So there’s some opposite techniques there, but I think it could be true even of a rear wheel drive where I, I had an E 36 track car and you set the ride height so that it squatted a certain way so that under breaking the car was level and it didn’t get light. So you were trying to create the opposite effect and keep the car stable.

So there’s a lot to setting up that balance front to rear and where you position your roll center. So I guess what I’m getting at here with a long-winded explanation is it’s not [00:56:00] always about the position of the control arm so much as what you’re trying to achieve with the balance of the vehicle,

James Clay: right?

Totally. Powerflex world, which means we’re talking about sedans going from street use to track use. It’s another tool in your toolbox. And, and it’s not about having a textbook perfect. It’s about being able to make the change that you need and have that role center correction or role center adjustment as a tuning tool.

So when I talked earlier about one of my favorite adjustments on the BMW being, raising and lowering the rear of the car, and, and that was within a range of reasonable. So I’m not really affecting camber. I’m not really affecting tow, I’m really not affecting corner weight. Right. Like does, does raising the rear of the car a quarter inch.

If I think about, you know, my buddy, the Ian, what does that do to corner way to the car? Really nothing. What I’ve done, I’ve changed the rake a little bit, but I’ve changed my role center. And so that’s, that’s why that change is so effective. And I don’t necessarily care slash know where the role center is when I start.

I just know that I’m making a change in a [00:57:00] direction that’s, that does what I need. Um, with that adjustment on that specific platform, we do a lot of role center changes. For example, in, uh, in a Specky 46 car. So it’s a, it’s a race car. It has defined spring rates front and rear, and so I can’t change those, but I can change my effectiveness of the rates by changing my role center.

It’s not an arrow car. So I’m not thinking about like, maybe I am on some of our GT four stuff, like how close to the ground am I getting the splitter? I don’t care about that. I want to either make the spring act more like a spring or lower it to the point that my spring is less effective because it’s a tuning tool.

It’s a tuning tool for the balance front to rear the of the car. We have this monster Pikes Peak car that we, that we’re building, which is, it’s less of a, less of a road car. It started out as an E 36, but it’s, it’s a tube frame, or, you know, it’s a tube frame. I, I’m not gonna lie to myself, it’s a tube frame.

So we’ve got dual arm fronts and we’ve got lots of racy parts, but we kept that, uh, E 36, uh, E 46 rear suspension, [00:58:00] kept those trailing arms, et cetera. So we initially set that thing up. With a roll center in the rear approximately like we use on the street cars. And again, that’s a great tuning tool. It works, you know, it works so well.

It has, this thing has massive arrow, but it’s, it’s, it’s with tunnels so it’s, it’s not really affected by our, our, uh, ride height so much. But, so it’s set up like a street car. Like, man, this thing is just fallen over on its face when we go into a turn. This is not working. So we changed the role center on the car 10 inches, which is a pretty big change for a, you know, we did, we did it with arm mounts.

Yeah. But you know, in the grand scheme of things, pretty big change. Basically we, we took it from street car geometry to, if we ignored that, this thing started as a street car and we just wanted to make it like a prototype. That’s typical prototype role center. And arm geometry and suddenly the car works like it’s supposed to.

So, you know, granted that’s a massive change. That was such an eye-opening thing about how it really made the spring work and allowed us to come down significantly on spring rate because it made the spring do its work instead of [00:59:00] being a improper bandaid for it.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely, and, and there’s a lot to all of this.

I mean, we could go down a whole, probably another episode about how sway bars play into the spring rate and every millimeter that you increase the sway bar adds X amount of, you know, spring rate and all these kind of things. It’s all tied together. And then you have end links between the sway bars and the control arms and the suspension components and there’s bushings there, right?

You replace those with Powerflex as well, or you know, whatever you have available for that whole application. But every one of those deflection points. Is another variable in this, this larger equation to suspension tuning. Right. But I think if we boil this back to basics, one of the things that people always wanna address is, what’s the quickest way for me to eliminate under steer or over steer using Powerflex catalog there?

What would be some of the things that people would leverage to help mitigate just some of the basic unwanted characteristics of a vehicle?

James Clay: I would say before you, you say unwanted characteristics of the vehicle you have to make the car work like it’s supposed to work. That’s the foundation. Whether, [01:00:00] whether it’s like we discussed earlier, replacing old stuff that’s worn out or not functioning like it used to, or just replacing road car stuff, you know, that’s fine for a road car and meets whatever balance the, the engineers were trying for there.

But if you want a track car, you, you want your car to do very specific things. So getting rid of that slot and making the car work, all the, all this suspension flex, et cetera, is free amped movement. If I have an optimized race car, everything is solid, things are moving exactly how they’re supposed to move.

They’re set exactly the way I wanted them, and I have springs and sway bars and shocks controlling it. A lot of other tuning features, et cetera. But those, those are my control devices in motion. If I go back to that stock bushing example, but I still have my fancy racing springs and shocks and all that stuff.

I’ll, you know, we talked about dampers early. I’ll, I’ll throw MCs four ways, which is what we have on the, on the Pikes car. 10 grand worth of dampers. Amazing [01:01:00] if I do that, but they’re controlling whatever amount of, of motion roll, et cetera, that’s, that’s compressing that spring through the shock, et cetera.

But then I’ve got it all mounted on arms that are just doing kind of whatever they want to do. I, I have zero control. Why am I paying 10 grand for dampers on a suspension that’s compressing and, and rebounding two, two and a half inches when I’ve got over a half inch of movement on my geometry of the whole thing.

So I, I think a lot of people go immediately to the shocks and springs and Sure that, that makes sense. Lower the car on springs. That’s a nice thing. It’s aesthetically pleasing. I get that. But if I’m thinking about it from purely a performance standpoint, the first thing I do. Is to make sure that those parts are actually working like they’re supposed to.

By controlling the movement on the stuff that’s not supposed to be moving around, which is the bushings of the car.

Crew Chief Eric: I can’t agree more with that because you know, as I was thinking about what you were saying, I think if I was gonna recommend, you know, going back to the gentleman we talked about earlier with this Jetta who’s looking to get rid of body roll and [01:02:00] things like that, I would tell ’em target the control arms and the trailing arm bushings.

Leave the suspension alone, clean that car up. It’s 15 years old, if not older at this point. So those bushings have gotta be worn out. They weren’t great to begin with. Target that, and it’s way cheaper. You’re gonna, to your point, you do a set of conies and, and h and r or you know, bill Steins or Newsfeed Springs or something like that.

It’s gonna set you back a thousand bucks. And what’s a set of bushings right? At the end of the day? So, to your point, Powerflex might be expensive, a hundred bucks for, for a set of, you know, strut mounts. Is not a thousand dollars for suspension. Now, I’m not saying if you want to go hell low and do all that kind of stuff.

Aesthetics aside, it’s awesome point. You drove home is start with the easy stuff. It’s actually cheaper in the long run and you’re gonna bring back better than new car feel, probably eliminate some of that body roll and under steer and over steer if you’re experiencing that instead of, you know, just throwing more money and not really solving the, you know, the initial problem.

James Clay: Think about it like, you know, when I’m working on [01:03:00] my car, right? You know, everybody listening here probably, probably does some level of work on their car. Imagine performing, whatever that job is. Let’s, you know, we’re talking about suspension, okay, I’m gonna install some control arms, so if I’m gonna install some control arms, I wear gloves when I work, I don’t want stuff under my fingernails, et cetera.

I like to, I like. Keep it kind of clean. I’ve got little, uh, you know, latex or nitrile gloves that I’m gonna use, right? Because I wanna be able to feel things and so forth. If I did that same job with my ski gloves, I’d have absolutely no feel, I’d have no control. I couldn’t do the job I was supposed to do.

That’s what your bushings do on the car. If you have the right components on the car, doing the right work, springs, shocks, et cetera. But it’s doing it through this translation of, I can’t feel what my, my fingertips are doing. ’cause I’ve got these big, big fat heavy gloves on you. Just, it, it gives you no control.

So, you know, we have a lot of customers that. We’ll do the springs, the shocks, the all the, the stuff that makes sense. First, it will work, it’ll perform fairly well, but what makes it really [01:04:00] work? You know, so it’s, it’s like you’ve spent five grand, whatever for, you know, for a nice racing setup. You’ve, you’ve spent a good chunk of money and you’re getting like 75% of the performance of it, and then that’s a real number, like 75, 80% something, which is way off, you know, because you could have spent a grand 1500 bucks and gotten that same amount of performance if you were allowing those parts to do their work with the rest of the full package.

Again, it’s systematic. Your suspension is not your spring, your suspension is not your spring and shock. Your suspension is the whole system of all the arms, all the bushings, and all the thing that make this whole car work in concert.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, and it’s funny you, the way you said that, it, the one word popped out in my head.

And it’s dexterity. And people often talk about road feel, to your point. It is translated through the suspension, through those bushings. The bushings are the contact points for all of your suspension components. Good on you. You got a tubular control arm. Doesn’t mean anything if you’ve got a soft bushing, but if you got a hind joint, it’s gonna feel [01:05:00] completely different.

Right? And so all of that I think translates to dexterity. It’s the dexterity of the vehicle, how you’re communicating through it and feeling the road. And so all of this is super important. It all plays together. And you’re right, it is a system. And we’ve had other episodes where we discussed safety as a system.

You know how all the harnesses and seats work together. All of this stuff in the automotive world really is designed to work together. And if you have one point that you kind of skipped out on, or if you put the cart well in front of the horse, the system doesn’t work the right way. So starting with small steps, starting with bushings as an example, is a great way to really build up to what you were maybe trying to achieve.

And maybe in the case of this guy with a Jetta, he needs to throw the 14 inch wheels away, go to a lower profile, and it might feel a little different on the road, you know, a little less squidgy, but I’m just gonna leave that on the side, you know, leave that where we found it

James Clay: to, to your point, you, it only works as well as the weakest part of the system.

Right? If it’s a system, the weakest one is gonna define the performance potential.

Jake Palladini: Absolutely. [01:06:00] I like to think about the, the bushings. Like, you know, your car is, it’s like the, the human body, you know. Uh, you got all these bones and everything, but what holds ’em all together? You got your joints, and that’s what your bushings do.

It, it’s exactly what they do. They’re the joint for everything in your suspension. It’s, it’s all put together like that. You can have strong bones, you can drink your milk and have great bones, but if your joints aren’t working right, then you’re not gonna feel good. So. That’s right, that’s right.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s sage advice there.

So let’s just kind of switch gears here into, you know, our final segment. Let’s talk about other products and offerings that Powerflex has that we might not be aware of. Like, we’re very intimate with the, you know, the bushing side and, and strut mounts and things like that, but the catalog is probably deeper than that.

So, you know, tell us a little bit about the other stuff that you guys offer.

Jake Palladini: So we’ve got some stuff, like, we have a universal bushings that some people use. Uh, a lot of them are modeled for, for different, I believe like carts and UTVs or whatnot. They’ve developed over in the uk we offer a. Pretty large range [01:07:00] of exhaust mounts that are made of our 65 a polyurethane as a replacement to the standard rubber ones that you always see destroyed under people’s cars, and those are meant to last way longer and they handle heat really well.

So you don’t have to worry about that being an issue either. We also offer a few kind of obscure things. We have our own camra gauge that’s not really advertised on our site that much It, it is just a camra gauge. It’s pretty cool. It says Powerflex on it. It comes in a really nice case. Um, we offer some, some pretty neat stuff aside from the bushings.

Nothing really too crazy that you won’t find on our website, but those are a few good things like the exhaust mounts and whatnot.

James Clay: We are a specialist. You know, we’re very clear that what we are, what we are good at is your thing. We have proprietary urethane that nobody else in the world has. It’s, you know, we haven’t really talked about it much on this show because it’s not necessarily your audience, but NBH, noise Vibration harshness our urethane.

Specifically is engineered to smooth out [01:08:00] some of the rough edges. Urethane has a bad name from some of the subpar urethane suppliers out there from some of the subpar urethane formulas. So we are very good at what we do, our production process, et cetera, you know, to have a part that that truly does last a lifetime.

So we haven’t, like some other companies in the suspension world, we haven’t taken urethane as an anchor point and jumped off to make whatever we decided to make. Um, you know, Jake mentions the camera gauge, you know. There’s nothing special about our camera gauge other than has our name on it, but what we’re, I still want one,

Crew Chief Eric: but, you know, Hey, well,

James Clay: well, I appreciate that.

We’re awesome at making urethane. And so we, we have expanded, we have over in the UK 25 30 cncs running, running around the clock, and they, you know, we, so we’ve expanded to making things that do have aluminum housings, et cetera, but there’s almost always a urethane foundation and component. We didn’t make engine mounts for a long period of time, and that’s something you mentioned early on, which we’ve now started doing.

But our engine mounts are, again, an engineered product, [01:09:00] includes machined aluminum. They’re made to act in a specific way. I, I know the ones that we make for the BM BMW are actually tunable with urethane rods. So you can tune your stiffness of how much vibration am I willing to accept for my engine? If I want it to stay more in place, more solid, and I can take a little bit more vibration, I’m gonna add more of those rods in and stiffen that up.

Again, especially

Crew Chief Eric: important if you’ve ever tried to put a urethane motor mount on a diesel. Let me tell you

James Clay: that’s, and, and again, you know, if I, if I look at other urethane suspension companies, I have red brand suspension company, I have yellow brand suspension company. You know, they have their urethane.

It’s the one thing we offer four durometers of urethane plus. We have metallic components specifically to your engine mounts and engine mount inserts, which we use a lot of times because it’s easy to just drop an insert in, fill those factory voids. We have a special one for diesels with a softer urethane because we know that the guys with diesels don’t wanna be vibrated to death and will be.

So [01:10:00] we have it, that one for those guys. We have a purple for a standard gasoline car. And of course we always have the black series if you just want this thing to be as stiff as possible. You get a black series.

Jake Palladini: In fact, mark vi and Mark VII golf are engine mount inserts as well as our hybrid mounts.

Because those dog bones have like the two pucks. They have the one in the bottom and the one on the top. We have a hybrid mount that is an insert up top and then a complete poly replacement for the bottom puck. But in those particular product lines, we offer those inserts and hybrid mounts in every durometer that we, that we sell, we offer ’em for the diesel.

We offer them for the lower end performance slash street driven car, uh, which is our yellow, the 70 a durometer. We offer those for more. Spirited drivers slash occasional track guy who wants the a DA in there. And then we offer the 95 A for the dedicated track cars. You probably wouldn’t want that in a streetcar.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, James, you brought up several times the [01:11:00] lifetime warranty of the Powerflex bushing or the Powerflex product itself. So let’s expand upon that a little bit. We get it. It’s lifetime. It’s built to last. However, say something fails. Something definitely goes pear shaped. What’s the process in which, you know, you get it RMA or, or replaced or whatever.

What, what do we have to do to get a replacement?

James Clay: We make it super easy. Like I’ve said, the, the lifetime warranty isn’t just the stamp we throw on there. It means something. We don’t expect a bushing to fail, but if it does, and certainly there’s, you know, there’s environments that you will fail bushings, and we get it.

And there’s instances that you will fail, bushings, if you’re in a wreck, there’s a fair chance that something might be affected negatively and, and your bushing is certainly one of those pieces that could go as well. We make it easy. There’s a lifetime warranty button on our website. You just fill out the form, we send you new stuff.

You’ve gotta provide pictures of your failed part. You’ve gotta provide a receipt that you’re actually the purchaser or the part, and then we send you a new part.

Crew Chief Eric: So interesting. So if I bought [01:12:00] a vehicle that had powerflex components on it, and maybe they were installed improperly and that caused it to fail, not my fault, but I would love to have them replaced, then I’m stuck buying new ones.

Or is there still an avenue for me to pursue?

Jake Palladini: So yes, the warranty does only apply to the original purchaser. And if the bushings are installed improperly to begin with, that’s a whole other thing. Our warranty does cover defects in our bushings and bushing failure after, you know, you’ve installed the bushings properly, it doesn’t cover user error.

It does not carry on to any other, anybody else other than the Yeah, it’s

Crew Chief Eric: non-transferable. I get that.

Jake Palladini: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah,

James Clay: yeah. We’re an enthusiast company. We, we care about our customers. Not everything is a. Firm, hard rule. But by the same token, we expect people to be fair with us. I mean, you, you put our part on, you don’t do it.

Right. You, you don’t, you don’t read the instructions, which, gosh, those things are minimal anyway. It’s not that tough to install our stuff. Yeah. If you’re not doing it right and you destroy our part, you know, you guys ought to buy another one. That’s, that’s fair. [01:13:00] So in, in general with, with anything we do, fairness is an important part of it.

And so it, you know, give us your best sob story. Tell us why we’re wrong. Tell, you know, give us, give us an opportunity to help you, but we’ve gotta have some opportunity. Why it’s our fault or why it’s our. Why it’s our issue. But I’ll tell you, you know, this lifetime warranty, we, we do wave that flag around and we’re, we’re big on it because we want to service our customers.

We want our parts to be on there for a lifetime, and our customers do too. That’s why they’re paying more for our parts and not heated labor bill. It’s, it’s an upfront investment with that. And as easy as we make it for people to cash in on that if needed. Our warranty stats are something in the range of a 0.0 x percent per year for the 20 years we’ve been doing this and for all the stuff we have out there.

So it’s, um, it’s our badge of honor, but by the same token, it, we do provide a lifetime part and used properly. And I’m not even saying used in the right environment, right. If you race on the part, if you beat it up or whatever, if it fails, then that’s on us installed properly, given its chance to perform [01:14:00] like we designed it to.

Pretty good chance that you’ll never need that lifetime warranty.

Jake Palladini: And occasionally parts do go through redesign. So if we, there’s a design that’s not working to the best standards, then they’ll go through and they’ll redesign the part. And if you happen to find yourself with a set of bushings that is not current, it’s not the new design, you can let us know and we’ll be happy to replace that.

We’ll be happy to send you that like a upgrade program. I like that. That’s pretty cool. Yeah. We want our customers to have the best version of, of what we’ve got. If you’ve got something that’s outdated, we don’t want that. We want you to have what’s now.

Crew Chief Eric: Speaking of the, now, let’s talk about the future. Is there anything coming down the pike that you’d like to share?

Maybe something that’s new and upcoming for 2021 or maybe 2022 coming from Powerflex that our listeners should be aware of?

James Clay: We do an excellent job of covering car models. I don’t envision us deciding to make powerflex exhausts anytime in the near future, right? We’re gonna stick with things that are urethane.

So of the things that we do that are urethane, we keep adding [01:15:00] CNC machines. Um, you’re starting to see more of these complete powerflex solutions that include CNC aluminum blocks and housings, and there’s one with a Volvo so that you don’t have to harvest the pin out of the factory part, which is just a, a real pain in the butt to do.

So. You’ll see more complete solutions like that. Our big focus is making sure that we cover our full cars, so we, we have clear marks that we focus on. We’re European, we get that. We do some Japanese as well, but we have clear car marks that we supply parts for. Then we just wanna have everything. And it’s, you know, sometimes it’s a, it’s a little tough for us.

I mentioned having over 10,000 SKUs, you know, we have to keep a large volume of those, of each of those SKUs in stock. So the inventory requirement is heavy for us sometimes to have parts for cars that are still under warranty, which is just wild. But we are gonna do the engineering, we are gonna have the part available.

And, you know, for your, for your new model BMW, even if it’s only three years old, we’ll have the opportunity to upgrade or replace with better stuff, even if you could just go to the dealer and [01:16:00] get it replaced with the stock stuff. So yeah, that’s what we’re doing. Just making sure that we have everything you need.

Crew Chief Eric: Well guys, it’s been awesome to really kind of dig into suspensions and bushings and whatnot. But you know, for our listeners out there, if you wanna learn more about polyurethane poly bushings, powerflex, aligning your street or track car, be sure to visit powerflex usa.com or follow them on Facebook and Instagram at powerflex bushes.

Or Powerflex, USA, so you can always reach out to Jake for additional information. You know, use the contact us form on the website. But, you know, I gotta say, guys, this has been super informative. I think this has been a great segment that we did here. You know, getting down and dirty with suspensions, learning more about Powerflex.

I can’t thank you guys enough for coming on the show.

Jake Palladini: Thank you for having us. It’s, it’s been a pleasure talking with you guys. And, uh,

James Clay: great. Yeah, it’s, uh, you know, I love, I love talking suspension. That’s my favorite part of the car. As a, as a driver, that’s, you know, that’s my best tuning tool to be able to, to make the car go fast.

And so to be able to chat for an hour [01:17:00] about suspension. Good stuff. Thanks for the opportunity.

Crew Chief Eric: No worries.

That’s right. Listeners. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our Patreon for a follow on pit stop mini episode. 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.

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.gt motorsports.org.

You can also find us on Instagram at grantor 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@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 [01:18:00] 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 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.

Highlights

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

00:00:00 The Importance of Suspension Bushings
00:00:57 Introducing Powerflex and Its Innovations
00:01:49 Powerflex’s Journey and Market Expansion
00:14:39 Understanding Suspension and Alignment Basics: Diving Deep into Camber, Castor, and Tow
00:32:49 The Role of Powerflex in Suspension Tuning
00:37:03 Practical Advice for DIY Enthusiasts
00:40:48 Introduction to Powerflex and Dealer Networks
00:42:04 The Importance of Quality Control Arms and Bushings; Powerflex Kits and Installation Tips
00:46:10 Alignment Essentials for Optimal Performance
00:51:23 Advanced Alignment Techniques and Tools
00:59:33 The Role of Bushings in Suspension Systems
01:06:31 Powerflex Product Range and Innovations
01:10:57 Lifetime Warranty and Customer Support
01:14:35 Future Developments and Conclusion

Bonus Content

Unlike early urethane solutions – often DIY concoctions poured into stock bushings – Powerflex takes a fully engineered approach. Each bushing is designed with specific voids, hardware, and materials tailored to its application. The result? A product that not only fits but performs better and lasts longer.

Powerflex’s proprietary urethane formula is a key differentiator. It’s so unique that one of its components is also used in the clothing industry for spandex and lycra. This advanced material allows Powerflex to offer a lifetime warranty – because they’re confident the parts will outlast the car.

The bushings come in different durometers (a measure of hardness), color-coded by application:

🟣 Purple (80A): Ideal for street performance
🟡 Yellow (70A): Softer for comfort-focused applications
🔴 Red (65A): Used in specific low-load areas
⚫ Black (95A): Track-focused, high-performance applications

While Powerflex doesn’t typically do one-off custom work, they do respond to market demand. If enough enthusiasts request a solution – like they did for the BMW 2002 or a specific Porsche trailing arm bushing – Powerflex will invest in the tooling to make it happen. Their catalog even includes a one-time run of bushings for London’s iconic black cabs, solving a chronic failure point in their steering racks.

The Suspension Trinity: Camber, Caster, and Toe

To understand how bushings affect your car’s behavior, you need to understand the holy trinity of suspension geometry: camber, caster, and toe.

Camber is the tilt of the wheel relative to vertical. Negative camber (top of the tire tilted inward) improves grip in corners by maximizing the contact patch under load. Too much, however, can lead to uneven tire wear.
Caster is the angle of the steering axis when viewed from the side. More caster increases straight-line stability and adds dynamic camber during cornering—especially important in McPherson strut setups.
Toe refers to whether the wheels point inward (toe-in) or outward (toe-out) when viewed from above. Toe-out can make a car feel more responsive or “darty,” while toe-in promotes stability.

As mentioned on the episode: Quick & Easy String Alignments!

Powerflex bushings reduce unwanted deflection in all these areas, helping maintain alignment settings under load and improving both performance and tire longevity.

Whether you’re chasing lap times or just want your daily driver to feel tighter and more responsive, upgrading your bushings can transform your car’s behavior. And with Powerflex’s lifetime warranty and engineering-first approach, it’s a mod that pays dividends for years to come.

So next time you’re planning your build – or just trying to fix that vague steering feel – don’t overlook the humble bushing. It might just be the upgrade your suspension has been waiting for.

There’s more to this story…

Some stories are just too good for the main episode… Check out this Behind the Scenes Pit Stop Minisode! Available exclusively on our Patreon.

This content has been brought to you in-part by sponsorship through...

Under the Microscope: What Oil Analysis Reveals About Your Engine’s Health

Tania M

July 20, 2021

Under the Microscope: What Oil Analysis Reveals About Your Engine’s Health

When it comes to motorsports, performance is everything – and that includes what’s happening beneath the surface. In this special crossover episode of Break/Fix from Gran Touring Motorsports, we team up with “Blackstone Joe” Adams from Slick Talk Podcast to demystify the science of oil analysis and why it’s one of the most powerful diagnostic tools in your garage.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Blackstone Labs has been decoding engine health since 1985, starting with heavy-duty diesel engines and expanding into everything from aircraft to race cars. Their secret? A personalized approach. Every oil sample gets a human analyst – not a computer-generated report – who interprets the data and offers tailored insights.

Joe, who began as a data analyst and now runs Blackstone’s social media and podcast, explains that oil analysis is like reading your engine’s diary. It reveals wear patterns, contamination, and even the presence of additives or foreign substances. Think of it as preventive medicine for your motor.

Spotlight

Notes

Blackstone Labs (BSL) origin Story
Explain the oil testing process: How does a new customer engage with BSL; What does the service cost? Explain expectations and how to interpret results for a first timer?
How does BSL pin-point issues with engines?
Oil change intervals? 3K / 5K / 10K, more?
Are additives all they are marketed to be?
From the data you see what would you say are the Top-5 performing brands?

and much, much more!

Transcript

Break Fix.

Blackstone Joe Adams: Hello and welcome back to the show. This is Blackstone Joe, and you’re listening to the Slick Talk Break Fix crossover episode with our friends at Grand Touring Motorsports.

Crew Chief Eric: And as a follow-up to the episode we did a couple weeks back, you’ll remember that we spoke to one of the major oil providers in the Motorsports world and Blackstone Labs was mentioned on that episode.

And we thought, what a great way to introduce people to the idea of oil analysis. So with Joe’s help, we’re gonna unpack all of that and with us tonight, as a bonus filling in for Brad as our co-host from the drive-through, you’ll recognize her as [00:01:00] Tanya.

Executive Producer Tania: Hi, thanks for having me, and welcome to Break Fix, Joe, we’re excited to have you on the show tonight.

So without further ado, let’s just get rolling. So first up, the origin story. Tell us about Blackstone Labs.

Blackstone Joe Adams: So it begins in 1985 and that year is very easy for me to remember ’cause that’s the last time the Bears won the Super Bowl. So it starts off in 1985, Fort Wayne, Indiana, founder by the name of Jim Stark Oil Analysis.

You know, if it seems like a niche thing now, uh, you go back in the eighties, you know, even more so Jim’s approach, you know, the customers that were out there largely were just talking about big diesel engine owners, factory machinery, aircraft. In the years since then, and we’ve really grown into pretty much any area where oil is needed to do its job.

We’re there Blackstone laps. Through the years, we’ve just tried to maintain a personalized approach to every customer having a comment specific. To each customer, [00:02:00] their sample written by an analyst, no computer generated nonsense. It’s a personalized approach that’s really been ingrained into our success.

Crew Chief Eric: So, Joe, why don’t you explain for our audience what your role is at Blackstone?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So recently I was kind of grappling with answering this just in daily conversation ’cause it’s not as simple as it used to be. So I, I came on board. As a data analyst strictly. So I was one of the people who would look at the results and I would summarize what looked like a problem, what looked great.

But in the years since I joined the company, I’ve started to wear quite a few hats. So now I run social media. I started the podcast Slick Talk for Blackstone, so I’m really basically communicating the good news of oil analysis in pretty much any way I can. So it’s grown from writing to social media, to podcasting, and who knows where we’ll go next.

Crew Chief Eric: In listening to some slick talk episodes, you go into great detail on individual subjects that we’re kind of covering at a higher level [00:03:00] to, you know, kind of get everybody a broad brush approach to the whole idea of oil analysis. And one of the things that you bring up on multiple episodes is pinpointing issues with particular types of vehicles or engines and and oils, et cetera.

How do you guys make that determination? How do you figure out that a certain engine is doing a certain thing or this is a bad thing versus isn’t all twin cam four cylinders basically the same? If they were designed out of the same, you know, let’s say Cosworth mold, let’s take the four A GE Toyota versus the 20 valve Volkswagen.

How do you know the difference?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So what we see in general, you can see a typical wear profile where you have a balance, you have a shape of metals as I like to refer to it. And when you see metals that get out that typical shape, we know say let’s just take a a particular B-M-W-I-I always. I wanna go back to the S 65.

For some reason, we know that it will have about the same amount of, for the engines with leaded bearings, it’ll have about the same amount [00:04:00] of lead and iron in a sample. And then you’ll see copper behind that, and then you’ll see aluminum behind that and then crumb. So we can see what’s typically dominant and what’s not.

So one key giveaway for me is seeing an unusual balance. We see maybe a, a, a, an odd amount of chrome. From piston rings, for example, let’s say it’s way outta line relative to piston wear and, and iron from steel parts like cylinder liners. That can be a, a, a giveaway that something is obviously wrong.

Mechanically, it’s generating more metal in certain areas that normally does outweighing other metals. That’s a concern. There are certain levels that no matter how you slice them, they just are problematic. When you talk about, when you get metals up towards like the thousands of parts per million, say if we’re looking at like any gasoline or diesel engine, there simply is not a healthy wear profile that would involve that amount of metal.

But then when you, when you go between these areas, you do [00:05:00] have a little bit of gray where you have metals that are typically when they’re about twice average. That’s when we wanna start paying attention to them. But again. We can start earlier if you have a very unusual balance, regardless of the levels, but typically when they start reading about twice average, that’s when we wanna keep an eye on them and over trends.

If we see a steady increase. That often is a key indicator of a problem. An increase where you’re sampling 3000 mile oil change interval after 3000 mile change interval, and you just see the steady climb. That’s another way to tell there’s something not right mechanically. And then obviously there are very, I would say, concrete results where no matter what something is wrong, the presence of antifreeze, the presence of fuel that is so significant, it’s thinning the viscosity, it’s diluting oil additives.

There’s no good way for that to be going on. Running into excess dirt where you see a silicon level that’s coinciding with so much excess [00:06:00] wear. You do have to play a waiting game sometimes where you have levels that don’t match up perfectly with average, but maybe that’s due to hard use mods, et cetera.

We’ll wanna see how trends build. And then obviously you have those times where there’s no reason for, you know, once you start getting north of like a thousand parts per million and then you start getting to the point where that also involves. Visible metal coinciding with high level, there’s a delicate way of handling trends, and then there are the screaming stop signs.

Something is wrong.

Executive Producer Tania: And I guess in terms of, you know, really pinpointing down, I guess another example, could you provide guidance or give a recommendation to someone? Can you tell for them that they’re running the wrong. Motor oil for their engine. Perhaps they’ve got something that’s too thin, they’ve got an older engine with high mileage, they should be running something thicker because they do already have wear.

Is that something that too specific?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Well, what it often comes down to is folks will stray if, if they do stray [00:07:00] from the manufacturer guidance. Usually it’s just not the case that someone can outthink the manufacturer that often comes into play. So if someone is running like a 10 60 an engine that’s designed to run a zero 16, it obviously is not what’s supposed to be in there.

And it doesn’t take us to, to know that. Usually I think folks will try and doctor it in such a way where they think, well, okay, yeah, exactly. Your, your example of a high mileage motor. They’ll try and outthink whatever the manufacturer says because of mileage, because of other parameters. And we find that.

What the manufacturer’s telling you to run is the right choice. Managing a problem though, you can’t put a bandaid on it with, okay, run a different oil, put this additive in a problem is a problem. The nice thing is you can view the manufacturer guidance as a safe bet, and when we find a problem, you can’t really fix it with the oil, with an additive, so it doesn’t [00:08:00] become an area of recommendation for us.

Crew Chief Eric: So that actually brings up a really good point. We’re gonna talk about additives a little bit more here in a minute, but can you actually detect in the analysis whether somebody has bought, you know, let’s say off the shelf, I’m gonna name names, just because people are familiar, you know, a bottle of Lucas or a bottle of sea foam or whatever it might be, or maybe a can of Coke, and they poured it down into the system.

Can you detect what someone has done if they didn’t report it to you on the slip?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Some of them do have dead giveaways, not all of them. What can get tricky is a lot of oil additives. Oil treatments will contain elements that are already present in engine oil to begin with. So some of those can hide, but a few of them, a lot of the popular ones stick out like a sore thumbs.

Think turbo max, arch Oil, RevX, um, restore. These are additives that stand out because they use elements that generally are not present already. Turbo max, arch Oil, RevX, I group them together [00:09:00] because they all three will contribute a lot of potassium to the oil. Um, they’ll also influence the boron level, which boron is present in oils to begin with.

A lot of them, but arch oil and RevX have a level far, far higher than what you will ordinarily start out with. So those stand out. Um, as does restore, restore for different reasons. It has a very high concentration of copper and lead. So if you’re interested in how your engine’s wearing at brass bronze parts.

Probably don’t use Restore before you send in a sample. And if you’re worried about a coolant leak in your engine, please don’t put Arch Oil and RevX in there before. I mean, we can suss out what looks typical for the additive and what doesn’t, but it can’t help your cause if you’re worried about that particular problem.

Lucas. We know what to expect. It’s gonna raise that viscosity, so it’s gonna raise it above spec generally, depending on how much you use. So if we see a slightly high viscosity and nothing else is out of line, that [00:10:00] generally is just a result of using Lucas, a harmless one at that. Not all of them stand out like C foam.

That will generally burn up as the engine reaches operating temp. It’s not gonna leave unusual, uh, elements behind. Yeah, we definitely know a few just by looking at the numbers

Crew Chief Eric: to include Coca-Cola. Yeah, I get it. So it sounds like you guys have come up with a way of, you know, putting this jigsaw puzzle together and pinpointing certain parts.

I mean, I listened to those other episodes and it’s like, hey, we can pinpoint exactly when it seems like the oil pump is gonna die on that S 65, you know, certain parts because of their composition. So are you guys taking apart these engines in order to figure out how they’re constructed? Are you getting the information from the manufacturers?

And I bring that up because a lot of older motors, and this doesn’t have to be like, you know, the Packard era of cars like the 1930s and forties, we’re going back to even the early Porsches where they used unique and precious metals. Like how do you catalog all that stuff and half your splits where the case was magnesium at one [00:11:00] point and then they switched to aluminum.

You know, so how are you getting all of that information or discerning it?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So we do get hands on in in certain instances, especially when we want to learn more about what’s causing particular problems. Like we had a, a Nissan CBT transmission, um, in the garage at one point. We see so many of those because that is one where if you’re using the wrong oil, that thing will fail and fail fast.

And so we wanted to learn more about like what the oil passages look like in this thing. Let’s take some swabs and find out metallurgy during training, taking apart 22 liter ecotech. Um, but yeah, not all of them are going to come our way. So we’re going to have to rely on the samples that come in, in a lot of cases to learn what to expect.

So it all comes down to getting that used oil and seeing what elements are present, what’s typical. So there are cases where it might be our first go at a particular engine, a a vintage motor like you’ve mentioned before, and we’re just going to [00:12:00] have to feel as we go. But I’ve never run into a situation where there wasn’t a similar model that we did have decent beta for.

So even if it’s our first go at motor, I can feel pretty confident that I can dive into our history and find at least something adjacent. It is going to be close in terms of design metallurgy, the time it was manufactured. Not a guarantee, but I feel very good about finding a reliable comparison somehow.

Some way.

Crew Chief Eric: We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on engines, but you know, you also mentioned that you can do transmission and differential analysis or oil analysis as well. What are the things that you guys discover or are able to discover when you’re looking at those types of components?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So when we’re looking at transmissions, obviously transmissions or differentials.

There’s not as much going on in terms of what parts are generating what metal. They’re, they’re very simple relative to engines. Like a differential, it’s going to be iron and a lot of iron because it’s pretty much [00:13:00] steel gears. There’s just, there’s not very much happening. And likewise with transmissions, parts that are major contributors.

I mean, if you’re looking at like an automatic, the oil pump manuals are just very simplistic in terms of their metallurgy. Again, it comes down to looking at what parts are generating what metal, how much are we seeing relative to a healthy version of that particular model. And just going off from there, if, if, if it’s a, if it’s a transmission designed to run a very particular kind of oil, we can obviously let you know if the additives of the viscosity appear to be correct, because that’s.

I would say when it comes down to transmissions, that’s the most common thing. People are inquiring about A CVT or a similar transmission where they’re like, Hey, I took it for an oil change. Now it’s not shifting. Right? Can you see if this appears to be Toyota Ws? Does this look like Nissan and S two and S3 and so on?

So we can help folks [00:14:00] out and let them know if this appears to be the wrong oil or not. But yeah, similar to engines, we’re going to tell you what parts appear to be wearing excessively, how things generally stack up compared to what we see on average.

Crew Chief Eric: But no luck for those guys hoping for, you know, the great car neck, ESP to say your second gear synchro is about to explode.

Blackstone Joe Adams: Right, exactly. We, we can’t go too far into the ether, but we will do our very best.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s other things you guys can pick up in the analysis you, you mentioned insoluble traces of lead, you know, other things like that. So do you wanna just elaborate on what that might mean for folks that are unfamiliar?

Blackstone Joe Adams: As far as insoluble and what they mean.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And where lead traces come from. ’cause people are like lead, you know, lead is, lead is poison. Right. We don’t, we don’t do things with lead anymore.

Blackstone Joe Adams: So That’s a good point. So engines that do not have lead bearings, which I don’t know if there’s a model that will come out today or in the past 10 years, is gonna have lead bearings from the factory.

So there are other sources though. Lead can come from octane boosters. It can, [00:15:00] you know, if you’re using any non pump gas, even race fuels that will say unleaded will tend to have some present and that will manifest in the spectral exam, will see a lead level. And a good way to tell that’s not a problem is if the engines.

Normally make zero, none. And, and we see a, a high level it, it generally means that’s blow by of some form. It, it’s something related to fuel. It’s something related to an additive that you put in the fuel. If we see manganese present and a high lead level, that’s a good clue. I’m looking at octane booster.

So yeah, just be aware of stuff like that. If you’re using it, it’s not going to be problematic, but is a good way to explain an unusually high lead level. And as far as in solubles, we rely on those to tell us about oil filtration because if you have excess, and solubles usually means the oil filter was used up and that solid material was no longer being filtered out, so it was floating around in the crank case.

[00:16:00] Now these can also come by way of not poor oil filtration or the oil filter being used up. They can also form. Very quickly if the oil’s exposed to excess heat and it just starts to oxidize rapidly, so insoluble come from the oil itself. That’s one thing that people generally, they’ll say, what? What are these insoluble coming from?

It’s the oil oxidizing and becoming solid in solubles. We wanna see a low level, just to give some perspective, a high level is anything over 0.6% of the sample. So if you have a level above that, even it can start to turn the oil abrasive, and then you’ll wind up with excess wear as a result.

Crew Chief Eric: Not all oil filters are created equal, but then there’s some wives tails around, you know, don’t buy the white brand, don’t buy the orange brand.

I’ll only buy the black ones. You know? And is, is that really true? Because, I mean, if you bust open an oil filter. Aren’t they just a cartridge inside? It’s a paper filter. Like anything else, are there different, you know, micron levels there that, uh, a [00:17:00] filtration? Is there one that’s really better than the other?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Here’s the issue with that and it, and it comes down to what info we have. Folks very rarely will tell us what filter they’re using or, or describe even, you know, maybe we’ll get a brand name, but we won’t get anything beyond that. Maybe we’ll see Wix may, maybe we’ll see Motorcraft, but often they won’t.

So what we’ll have to do is we’ll just have to see where in Solubles land and then build trends for them and then see, okay, you use this Wix filter, you’re in Solubles, we’re about this level. Then you switch to a different kind. It’s hard to deliver recommendations without folks telling us exactly what they used.

If you are mentioning what you’re running and, and you mention that you want to compare your filters and how they performed, we’ll absolutely take that approach in the comment, we’ll let you know how it looks on our end, but tricky to develop a database just due to folks not thinking it matters and they won’t wanna describe it to us.

I would also [00:18:00] say that your inclination about filters just being very simple, is also true. There’s not much going on, but yeah, in general, folks don’t want to tell us that, but if they do, we’ll be happy to go into detail about how we think it’s working relative to what they’ve ran before.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, so don’t be embarrassed that you bought your oil filters at Walmart, right?

They’re just as good as the ones from the dealers. They’re.

Executive Producer Tania: Around oil filters. The historical standard kind of guidance that we’ve all had is every time you do an oil change, change, oil filter, right now with oil change intervals getting longer, and these quote lifetime oil fills, how long can your oil filter go?

Should you still be going in there and changing it? You know, every 3000 miles, or if you’re on a 5,000 interval, that’s fine. Or if you’re on a lifetime, is it, where is your interval?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Yeah, so it’s a common misconception. Well, not so much, you know, I don’t wanna make folks ever feel bad for changing the filter every time, but you don’t have to.

3000 mile intervals have gone by the [00:19:00] wayside for engine oil, pretty much with filters similar to that. You don’t have to change it every time. Now, if you want to have confidence in how it performed, the only way to know is taking a sample and seeing how much solids are present. But I will say that it’s a rare day where I see a sample.

Folks have not even tried to surpass like the, the manufacturer recommended interval for the oil. It’s a pretty rare day that I see in soluble so high that I’m like, oh goodness. It’s, it’s, thank goodness you changed that filter as well. Generally, folks can go longer than they currently are, but when it comes down to throwing out a specific number, that’s all relative to what your engine, how your engine’s doing.

So if you take a sample after 5,000 miles, I see a low in solubles level, then it’s within reason for you to go another five on that filter. I would also say that when we talk about building trends, it’s not that folks have to sample every single time. Once we get a good trend established, you can get a little bit more liberal with how [00:20:00] often you sample.

So it’s not as if I’m saying. Give us all your money, develop a trend, see how things are consistently, and then you can spread things out. But yeah, in general, and I think more manufacturers are saying this, I just came across Honda, um, the other day advising that you could do it every other oil change.

And for most of their engines, we’re talking about seven to 10,000 mile recommended intervals. They’re saying you can do it every other. Generally that’s what I’m seeing as well. And folks can if not go longer, especially if they have like a bypass setup.

Crew Chief Eric: That actually brings up a really good question in terms of when you’re doing the testing, ’cause there’s so many variables in all of this.

What things do you recommend that people keep consistent? Is it keep using the same oil filter for a while and then do your oil testing? You know, is the Castrol better than the mobile, better than the Valvoline or the Havelin or whatever it is you’re trying and leave all the other variables the same.

Obviously your driving is gonna be different. Maybe you’re towing, maybe you’re racing, maybe you’re just Dr. In [00:21:00] bumper to bumper traffic. What things would you recommend? Just keep them the same or the opposite. Leave the oil the same and change the filters. Right? Don’t make too many changes.

Blackstone Joe Adams: Not making too many changes.

Also, my biggest guideline is don’t overreact to one bad sample or don’t overreact to one less than ideal result. Folks will have a high wear level, or they’ll have less than ideal, you know, shift in wear, and then they wanna change everything. They wanna change the oil, the filter choice. They wanna start running the engine differently.

They’ll change the oil change in the hole, and then we’ll see pretty dramatic shifts maybe. And then they’ll say, ah, I knew Rotella T six was crap. And it’s like, no. I mean, what happened was you had a sample from a car that you just bought. You didn’t know anything about it. You didn’t know what the last toor was doing, how long the oil was in.

We found some excess metal. Then you switch to red line and then you have like better results. That doesn’t say that the last oil was bad. This is so superior. Make sure we know [00:22:00] what’s going on. As far as how long was the oil in use, what was. You know, what were the driving habits? So I would say the key thing is never overreact, throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.

You want to, I would say make slight adjustments, go slow with it, and then we can account for the variables one by one. But yeah, if you have a less than ideal result, unless we say, Hey, this is obviously you need to go look into this. As far as repairs, anything invasive. If it’s not that sort of scenario, I think it’s best to let the trend play out with what you’re already doing.

Keep the oil change interval, go ahead, run the same oil, same filter. Let’s just see if this changes over time, for better or for worse.

Crew Chief Eric: So with these oil change intervals, you know, in the old days people used to say, put a magnetic drain plug in. Look at what comes off on the drain plug. Does that skew the oil analysis?

Is that something you would still recommend doing just to help kind of maybe boost or augment what the oil filter isn’t capable of catching?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So fortunately that [00:23:00] doesn’t skew our results because metals on the level that we test for are too small to be impacted by a magnetic drain plug. So when you’re talking about levels and parts per million versus the visible pieces that will get captured, you can still count on a problem manifesting on a microscopic level with or without a magnetic plug.

So you can use that feel free. It’s not going to prevent us from looking at a problem. It will catch the visible stuff That is good to check for though, because if you’re seeing visible metal and you have that magnetic plug and place, you know what you typically see after you change the oil, then you see, oh, well wait.

This is clearly an increase. I have more metal on the plug, and then we see a sample with high levels on a microscopic basis. Those are two valuable data points to have together, so feel free to use one. It’s not gonna throw us off, and you can get a feel for what’s typical for you. On a visible basis,

Crew Chief Eric: still staying with this whole, the analysis and the oil changes.

I [00:24:00] mean, it’s all really related. One thing we haven’t talked about yet, you know, we, I think we’ve been primarily focused on gas motors, is going back to the origin of Blackstone, which is diesels. And I’m bringing this up because diesels have more and more now to be more, and let’s say clean. Thanks Volkswagen, but uh, ain’t that fine?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. But they’re doing a lot of recirculation, right. Putting particulates. Back into the system, especially through the intake, right? It’s getting either burned. Sometimes if there’s enough blow by, it’s getting sucked into the oil. There’s all sorts of things going on there. You’re adding soot, other, you know, carbon deposits, et cetera, and creating some sludge.

Now you’re starting to see gas motors try to adopt some of that technology as well to help with the emissions and keep the carbon footprint down and all that. How does that then change, you know, what you guys are seeing and how you’re analyzing it?

Blackstone Joe Adams: I would say with, with with diesel engine oil, the main thing that we come across is folks will just be concerned at the very appearance of soot.

It’s like they don’t [00:25:00] understand sometimes that they normally generate soot, so due to the blackened color, they’ll assume the oil’s not working properly or going off from that. They’ll think if it’s their first diesel, they’ll struggle to, to see what’s typical because they’ve been used to gasoline engines all their lives.

But really with the advances in diesel engine oil. Technology as far as the engines themselves, I mean, we’re still treating them the same way as far as looking for problems, doesn’t cause any sort of different analytical approach. But I will say that it’s, it’s not uncommon to see diesel engine oil samples now, where, you know, when we look at the insoluble tube that will contain soot, you know, the visible appearance of soot.

It’s not unusual to see pretty clean tubes where it’ll be a a, a large diesel that’s been running the oil 30,000 miles and the tube may not even be all that dark. So it’s not unusual to see them cleaner to see diesel engine oils that don’t even have a significant appearance of soot. I would say that might be a credit to the advancements they’re making.[00:26:00]

Um, but except for

Crew Chief Eric: it’s coming out the tailpipe, right?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Yeah. Yes. But, uh, yeah, in general, it, it’s interesting watching folks react to it. The darker the oil, they, the more concern is generated about it, not doing its job about the engine having a problem. That’s the main difference is taking that soot factor into account.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, there’s a lot of folks that subscribe to the, as you mentioned, the Rotella philosophy, right? I’m gonna do my best Mountain Manan impression, now I’m gonna head on down to tractor Supply by myself, five gallons of Rotella, and I’m putting it in everything, whether it’s gas, diesel, hybrid, it doesn’t matter.

When you’re doing your analysis, can you see if there’s side effects between using a diesel oil, which is generally very high in zinc in a gas motor, and maybe it’s causing some sorts of problems? You were talking about pinpointing issues. Is that something that shows up? Is that prevalent? Is that something you know, people should stray away from?

This actually leads me into a conversation about spec oils as well, so let’s kind of gear up on that.

Blackstone Joe Adams: Well, when you’re running these oils, literally the wrong [00:27:00] oil, you’re putting a diesel engine oil and a gasoline engine. Obviously you can have adverse effects on the wear profile. That’s very possible to occur, but there’s also other issues that aren’t necessarily going to register and testing, like clogging up a catalytic converter.

It’s something that can absolutely have an impact on where. It can be hard at times to suss out. Okay. What’s related to you using diesel engine oil and gasoline motor. And what else could have been a preexisting problem? What could have been, you know, unique to the engine’s wear profile anyway. So there absolutely can be adverse effects, can have other issues that won’t show up in testing.

By and large, I, I think folks really just can run the wrong direction by trying to outsmart whatever’s in the manual.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Blackstone Joe Adams: And, and, and buying. And buying the opposite. But,

Crew Chief Eric: and the same could be true for using, let’s say, gasoline engine oils in a diesel as well, right? Because they’re gonna have different chemical compositions that maybe are, may or may not be beneficial for that particular motor.[00:28:00]

Blackstone Joe Adams: Yeah. Diesel engine oils. Are fairly easy to spot compared to their gasoline counterparts because yeah, the added levels are much higher. You’re going to see more calcium, you’re going to see more phosphorus, more zinc, you know, levels that are more so approaching the thousands and above, whereas. Gasoline engine oil, you might have to buy like AMS oil to get a, a calcium level close to like 3000 or you know, levels that are higher.

There are specialized racing oils that pack more additive in there. It’s different formulations. A lot goes into that design. Yeah. So I, I think folks sometimes forget that.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t subscribe to that. I only did it once because my engine builder had told me, Hey, when we’re breaking in this new race engine, I need you to start out on break-in for X amount of time, dump it, then go get yourself some synthetic diesel oil ’cause it’s high in zinc.

I wanna seat these rings, run this for 300 miles and trash it. Right. And then because you have to build a motor up to tolerance as well. And so I wanna talk about that in a minute too, about the different [00:29:00] types of oils and spec oil and et cetera. But I mentioned this on, on another episode as well, that you know, you really need to look into these different types of oils.

They do provide some benefit, but the longer term effects won’t show themselves until you do some sort of oil analysis.

Blackstone Joe Adams: Yeah. You’re going to want to see. How things have progressed from that break-in period. And obviously some folks will go about different ways. There’s, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

If you want to boost that zinc, that phosphorus level, people will just buy ZDDP additive and they won’t even worry about going about another way. They’ll get that zinc and phosphorus from an additive in addition to the additive that’s present in the engine oil. So folks are gonna go about it to get that number higher.

Fortunately, we don’t see that cause a problem putting more additive in there. It’s something where people will have a number in mind and generally it’s okay when you’re talking about shifts in these additives. We’re gonna keep an eye on the wear levels and see what trends are showing as far as [00:30:00] healthy break in, or if we see what looks to be, you know, a ring that hasn’t seened properly, so on, so forth.

Crew Chief Eric: So Joe, there’s a lot of confusion when people walk into a big box store and they’re looking at a shelf of oils in front of them, right? So we mentioned some brands, not to call out any specifically, but there’s also different types of oil, right? You’ve got conventional, you’ve got Mineral, you’ve got Synthetic, you’ve got Mineral, synthetic, you’ve got Esther, you’ve got Diesel.

There’s so many different kinds, but what does that all mean? How do you know what to choose?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So folks can generally follow their manual. As far as seeking out a couple key things here, viscosity and finding an API certified product. If you have the appropriate viscosity and you have an API certified product, then what you’re mainly getting into between the various brands and blends are differences in manufacturing process, but they’re achieving the same goal.

Folks will get lost in worrying about ruining their engine by switching from like say, one [00:31:00] brand to another, one blend to another. And we don’t see the adverse effects and wear levels that come as a result of, oh I, I went from Semisynthetic to a full synthetic. Did I ruin the engine? That’s just not a scenario that we see play out.

It’s simpler than a lot of folks think in that you can rely on a product that meets certification that has the appropriate viscosity, guiding them the right way. In general, when you wanna switch from, you have an engine that’s been running conventional dyno oil, its whole life, and then they’ll worry that semisynthetic went in there.

It’s simply not going to cause the engine to suddenly forget it’s an engine.

Crew Chief Eric: It takes a couple oil changes to flush out the old oil completely. Or is that a wives tale as well?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So no, there, there’s definite truth to that and a good rule of thumb is about 20% generally carries over from one fill to the next.

So we’re always going to have carry over we and we, and we expect [00:32:00] that especially in instances where folks are sampling and oil that hasn’t had very much use on it. Most, if not all of the metal in those instances is just going to be whatever was in there before. You can count on that being a factor.

And we certainly do, especially in low mileage, low use samples, where most of it’s just residual. You haven’t, the motor hasn’t had time to generate much new wear, so what we have is what was in there before. So yeah, it’s gonna take a couple of oil changes to get a previous product out completely. And sometimes it’s hard to tell when it’s gone, depending on the add of package.

But if you have very distinctive products, you have like a royal purple that starts off with a very high sodium level and then you switch to a product like Castrol that doesn’t use any significant sodium. You can use elements like that to track and see, okay, here’s a fill that had carry over from that royal purple.

Now I have, okay, this is a very typical ad of lineup for Castro.

Crew Chief Eric: Refer [00:33:00] to the owner’s manual, all that stuff for the viscosity and the amount of oil and the service intervals and all that kind of thing. But in a lot of European cars especially, and we’re starting to see this more on Asian cars and American cars, some of the high end sub corvettes, et cetera, there’s the idea of spec oils, right?

Volkswagen is famous for this, right? You have to have the 5 0 5 0 1 for the diesels, and then they came out with the 5 0 5 0 2 and all this other stuff and it, you know, thou shalt not use any other oil, but this one, and there’s some people that say, well, I got a bucket of Rotella. I’m just gonna use that.

And I don’t feel like paying three times as much for this particular spec oil. In your experience, does using or switching away or back and forth from a spec oil to something else show any sorts of damage? Is that, is it something people should just stick with their spec oil or can you take a little bit of risk and say, Hey, I’m going to use this other thing that I, I know very well and I’m comfortable with.

Blackstone Joe Adams: It’s, it’s not a death sentence. Switching away from the spec. I mean, there, there are obvious formulations going into that spec. [00:34:00] There’s manufacturer reasons for that spec existing. But yeah, it’s a situation where folks will call in and they’ll say, well, I know they released a new spec by having oil that is, if not the exact same viscosity, very close.

And I’ve looked at the additives look like the same stuff in testing. It looks to be, you know, they’ve sent in say, a virgin sample for comparison and they’ve done a, a, a compare and contrast in those cases. I don’t expect to see anything. Catastrophic or even really adverse. Yeah. If you have a similar enough product, generally I don’t have a reason to tell folks Absolutely don’t do that.

Obviously you never have to lose sleep at night going by the book, but hey, if you need to complete the oil change and you had a court of Rotella and it’s similar in every physical way that we know how to measure, I don’t have a good way to tell you that you’re gonna ruin anything. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and I bring that up because I, I went through this, I have a [00:35:00] Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel right, that I used for towing.

And so there was a technical service bolt that came out and Chrysler actually changed their mind on the oil that was supposed to be used in that particular engine. They made it extremely difficult to find the new weight spec oil that was for the TSB. And I said, you know what? To heck with this. So I tried a French oil that was very similar to the original weight and whatever.

And you know, without doing the empirical evidence thing of going through a Blackstone test, I was like, it comes out clean. It doesn’t smell burnt, you know, I’m seeing the same oil temperatures. ’cause for me that’s a big indicator as to whether the, the health of the motor is where I want it to be. And then I discovered another brand that happens to be based out of, let’s say Texas.

And I switched that and I saw a 20 degree decrease in oil temperatures. And I was like, that’s what I’m sticking to. That’s the new weight. It might not be speck. So, you know, I, maybe I’m a candidate for a Blackstone Labs test. But you know, there’s certain things like that to me that resonate with how the engine is doing, how the oil is [00:36:00] doing.

But I think that leads us into a question that Tanya has about race cars.

Executive Producer Tania: All of your customers, are you seeing longevity differences? If, if you, if you’re out there pounding the asphalt in your race car every weekend, got a whatever, Corvette, straight outta the showroom or whatever, you know, an everyday car that someone might drive to work at groceries in maybe, and then you track it, the manufacturer would say, your oil change interval is however many miles.

Should the enthusiast weekend warrior be changing that oil on a more frequent basis because they’re running harder or the manufacturer has kind of taken into account their high performance engine and, and you can still follow the everyday guidance.

Blackstone Joe Adams: So you wanna rely on how much metal is being generated and how that oil bill is holding up.

Because sometimes we’ll come across, you know, it could be a Corvette. I, I believe it might have been just the other day I was looking at a sample where they had, I wanna say four track days on it. About 3000 miles total. A good mix of daily [00:37:00] driving and track use. It was a sample with excellent low wear, uh, an oil that had its viscosity in check.

It had no issue with, you know, excess solids, anything. They wanna run longer, and I had no reason not to suggest a longer interval. So it’s gonna come down to how much metal’s being generated. If metals are accumulating at a quick enough rate that looks like it’s probably good for you, good for the car to change it out, then I’ll tailor my recommendations based on how quickly that metal seems to be accumulating, how the oil’s holding up.

But really it’s is a case by case basis because one person’s track day is different from someone else’s, is different from the mods they put on their car. They’re demanding more power, resulting in more metal. It’s a case where you can build your own trend, you can tailor your own oil change interval because I might see a WRX that is busting out more power than God ever intended, and it’s making so much metal [00:38:00] as a result.

That they’re going need to change the oil more often than someone who is asking less.

Crew Chief Eric: And the motor I here. Yeah. Can you determine the expiration date of that boxer or what?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Well, when we see a situation where the metals are only going one direction, we can’t look into a crystal ball and give you a date.

But we can tell you there’s been a number of times where I’ve looked at a sample and I, I’m surprised the engine’s running. So I’ll just say that.

Crew Chief Eric: Do you have a big, do you have a big red ru rubber stamped that says, please stop driving? Now

Blackstone Joe Adams: my version of a rubber stamp is, I’ll say a couple times. I’ve said, if this engine hasn’t failed yet, it will soon.

Crew Chief Eric: So. Well, and that leads, that leads into a really great segue with respect to the Motorsport community because I think oftentimes. As Tanya said, people get excited, you know, they bought this sports car, they wanna go to the track. And what they don’t realize across the board, whether it’s the motor, whether it’s the tires, whether it’s the brake pads, [00:39:00] you know, we talk about this all the time.

Heat is the enemy. And so when we’re talking about oils, heat is definitely enemy oil coolers may not always be the solution because not every car is equipped to do that. But would you say that, you know, keeping the heat down, especially with respect to oil increases its longevity, keeps it from breaking down, having these insoluble, all this extra metal, these things we’re talking about, how important is oil temperature at the end of the day?

Blackstone Joe Adams: If it’s excessive and it’s excessive consistently, then yeah, it’s, it’s going to take a widespread effect. Boy, if you, you know, take it away from the ground and you go to the air and you talk about aircraft, I mean, even more so, temps are key. Just because if heat’s excessive consistently, the oil’s going to generally lose viscosity, solidify quicker.

Metals will be higher. You’ll have, you know, abrasive material causing excess square. It just touches everything. So it is worth putting a very high priority [00:40:00] on making sure that, you know, excess heat is not a reoccurring issue because Yeah, I mean, you’re right, it’s, it’s going to impact so much. It’s hard to see an area that won’t be impacted.

Crew Chief Eric: Now, another thing that people may not realize, and not every new car is equipped with gauges. I mean, the inside of my car looks like an airplane. You know, I’ve added everything I can think of. Oil pressure as well is indicative of changes within the engine. Do you wanna describe maybe some of the use cases or scenarios where fluctuations and oil pressure would be indicative of something that’s going on?

The main thing, whenever

Blackstone Joe Adams: I hear oil pressure, especially mainly folks will tell us when it’s low and that’s going to generally coincide if it’s wear related. It’s generally bearings and a bearing problem. Also can have other symptoms as as well, you know, oil pressure when low. Often that’s related to a bearing issue.

But what I always want folks to do, if we don’t see a high wear level, if we don’t see anything that looks to be excessive on that standpoint. Rule out other things like a problem [00:41:00] with the sending unit or, or any possible way for that reading to be off. It’s tricky for folks who don’t have that gauge handy right there, but if they do, and if oil pressure’s low, obviously that can coincide with a bearing problem.

But there’s other less nefarious reasons for that. So rule out things first, especially if you do end up sending a sample, we don’t see excess square to go along with it.

Crew Chief Eric: So I heard that oil thickens as it heats up. Is that true?

Blackstone Joe Adams: It it, it will definitely not. Thin it, he can raise the viscosity. The only time I see an oil that will thin is if you’re talking about like a TF, because yeah, difference in formulation in physical properties.

But yeah, motor oil is not going to thin as a result of,

Executive Producer Tania: yeah, they’re designed, the viscosity, the viscosity. Is kind of that gauge. And basically you create a flat profile for the oil. So you want the widest temperature range where essentially the [00:42:00] viscosity stays the same because you don’t want, you know, you started your morning at one temperature and then as the engine heats up, you don’t want the oil to change lubricity it, it’s viscosity.

So they’re designed to actually have a, a rather even viscosity range across a very wide temperature. But as, as Joe said, you get too hot, you literally break the oil down, you start thermal cracking it, you break it down into to non lubricant quality molecules, which is bad. You can get evaporation losses that way too.

Crew Chief Eric: So that makes it really confusing because we all go to the store, like I mentioned, and we stare at that wall of oil and you see 10 W 40 and you’re like. Five W 30 zero W 20. What the hell am I looking at? What does that mean? So if oil technically thickens as it gets hot. So this all concept of viscosity, people think as, you know, like if you think about it in, in a pan in the kitchen, you pour olive oil in a pan, it thins out as a heat, as a heats up.

It’s very different. So your oil pressure gauge, this all, I’m coming all full circle here guys. Your [00:43:00] oil pressure gauge, your pressure goes down as the oil heats up. So it’s like this inverse effect. So how does somebody that’s like. Not comfortable or familiar with this really makes sense of what’s going on.

Executive Producer Tania: The, the oil has to be designed in such that when, when it’s very cold, think you’re, you know, in the middle of winter you, you know, God forbidden Northern Canada, where you know it’s just you and a moose and you’re gonna start up your car one morning when it’s like negative degrees. If the oil is like molasses.

It’s really difficult to push through all the engine components, right? It’s gonna have a very hard time and nothing’s gonna wanna spin. So the oil’s designed to be a certain thinness, if you will, for simplicity’s sake at that very cold temperature. But at the same time, you don’t want when the motor heats up and.

You know, suddenly it’s 60 degrees outside or or hotter. You don’t want the oil to be like water because now you’re gonna have nothing to prevent metal on metal. There’s no barrier there for the friction. That’s [00:44:00] dangerous. So that’s why the oil then is designed in such a way that it’s thin enough for cold weather and still thick enough when the motor is up to temperature, so it’s not too thin.

Crew Chief Eric: Going back, you know, we’ve been kind of circling around this, what’s the danger in running a weight? We’ll just call it that. That is not necessarily within the parameters or the specifications, right? So let’s say your car’s designed for five W 30 and you say, you know what? I picked up 1550 ’cause that’s all they had.

And I was three quarts low and I had to put something in it. Is there, is there a danger there? Are you gonna see that on the oil analysis too with the improper oil weight in there? Is that gonna have a SI adverse side effect?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Well, if you’re, if you say that you’re running a 1550 and it measures like a 1550, then that won’t be out of line.

But as for what’s going on within the motor. Obviously, you know, you, you have a difference in how that would circulate at various temperatures, how that would lubricate at certain temperatures as the oil, as the engine’s getting warmer. So if you say you’re running a 1515 and measures like [00:45:00] one, we aren’t going to say out of line, but we do know what typically goes in there.

So if we see a weight that’s just unusually low, we’ll be sure to point that out. If I see a BMW that’s almost always running at 10 60 and you’ve got zero 20, and I’m gonna say this is interesting, we aren’t in a position to, uh, slap folks on the wrist as it were, and say people will believe how the engine runs, how it feels on their end.

That will be their gospel nine times out of 10. So we’re in a awkward position of saying, well, we know what’s what’s called for and surely you do too if you bought this car. So going from there and, and, and saying, the only time where I catch myself directly telling people not to do it because it’s kind of a matter of life and death is with aircraft.

If they’re running the wrong oil, a non aslu dispersant oil, I will directly tell ’em that this looks like you’re running the wrong [00:46:00] oil, because that can lead to detonation and you have an aircraft engine and detonation falling out in the

Crew Chief Eric: sky. You know, stuff like that. Yeah, nothing really important.

Blackstone Joe Adams: But yeah.

With motors, folks often have their truth. It’s, it’s awfully hard to tell them what to do, but with aircraft, I will.

Crew Chief Eric: You mentioned something really interesting and I picked up on it, which you said if it measures out of what it says on the bottle. So do you see a large variance in those weights, in those viscosity numbers?

Is there a certain margin or should you believe what’s on the label? Is it close to or,

Blackstone Joe Adams: yeah, there, there, there’s a range. We won’t see a, just due to variation. When the oil is tested, when it’s in the ter, you’re going to have some variation. As far as you know, it’s not going to be a certain set of stoke every time out of the bottle as it heats up, there’s a range for each particular weight.

So we’re going to see if we’re measuring an SUS. You know, a a a [00:47:00] 2050 or, or 10 60 say, just ’cause I have that one end off the top of my head, a 10 60 is typically gonna be between 80 and a hundred SUS. So we’ll see some variation in there, but a reading in that range would agree with it, meeting a 10 60 spec.

Gotcha. So you’re gonna have some variation as it reaches operating temperature.

Crew Chief Eric: So before we switch to the next geek out session, there’s one more engine related question I have to ask, and it’s for, for one of our members in particular. Is there anything that you can discern or that’s different or unique about a rotary versus a regular internal combustion or pitchin based engine?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Uh, metallurgy is definitely different than what you typically see Chrome from the rotor housing, for example, Chrome in almost any other engine we’re looking at exclusively as ring wear. So you have to be mindful when you’re looking at a rotary engine that that’s not the same metallurgy at all. So we expect a difference in wear [00:48:00] profile.

We expect a difference in shape of metal, but much like any other engine, we can detect a wear related problem. We can go into other areas with contamination, how the oil’s holding up, but we do keep in mind the design, the fact that metallurgy is different and that you’re going to see. Different sources, but yeah, Chrome is definitely a focal point, a difference from most engines out there.

As far as what’s coming from,

Crew Chief Eric: are apex seals considered an insoluble? No,

no. That’s right. They go out the exhaust valve. My, my bad. But we could, you know, we could nerd out about, you know, Atkinson cranks and all these different types of engines and whatnot. But I think we’ve covered the bases and this is really cool. So,

Executive Producer Tania: so, yeah. So moving on to the next topic. And we were kind of already, you know, going there with the conversation we were having right before the Rotary Fund around engine oil weight and, and the temperature effect.

So, circling back to that, you know, real quick, it’s not [00:49:00] inaccurate. Your thought that as the temperature goes up, I’m cooking on the stove, my oil bins. Pure oil, that’s what happens. But additives are what help make the oil quote unquote be thick at higher temperature. Basically, it’s preventing the oil from thinning.

So let’s talk about additives. Do I even, when do I, which do I, these are some of the key questions here, and you, Joe alluded a little bit in the beginning of the, the conversation here that, you know, the, the major oil brands or even all the oil brands, really the final formulation of the engine oils already includes additive packages.

I mean, that’s what really differentiates the Rotella from a cash flow from a mobile one, et cetera. And those include the viscosity modifiers, which are keeping your oil at the right viscosity at high temperature versus is low temperature, corrosion inhibitors, stabilizers, detergents, the list goes on and on.

How does everyday Joe and Jane. Know which, or even [00:50:00] if they should be adding any more additives than what their, their oil already has in them.

Blackstone Joe Adams: So here’s a good thing to keep in mind. There are very many secrets in this industry, uh, when it comes to oils and, and what goes into them, what additives, et cetera.

When you talk about stuff in addition to what’s in the oil already, if there was this just magnificent aftermarket additive. It saves motors. It prevents terrible things. It, it, it stops contamination from worrying anything the oil companies would know and, and they would put it in their oil. There just isn’t going to be a product out there that shell hasn’t found exists.

And you did. So you can rest easy with the additives that come with the oil. That’s because I think folks sometimes don’t keep in mind is what all is in. I mean, you have detergent, dispersing additives, you have anti-friction, you have anti-wear. I mean, there’s a lot going into these products. So when you get beyond what’s in that [00:51:00] bottle, sure there’s going to be different ingredients, you know, Lucas and Restore and are, all these additives have things that make them unique, but they are all the same elements, physical properties that I think the oil that’s in the bottle already is gonna cover your bases.

Crew Chief Eric: So that brings up an interesting question, kind of going back to the other episode we did about oil where I think it kind of works like a system though to kind of dovetail off of what you’re saying. So you mentioned AM Oil as an example, also Liqui Molly. Right? They have a whole line of additives. I would view it as.

I don’t know how I feel about taking Sero Tech, let’s say from Liqui Moley and combining it with Mobil One, was it really designed to work together? And to your point, the additives in Mobil one may contrast with or magnify the additive you’re putting in. So obviously if Liqui moly designed their additive, it should be designed to work with their oil, whatever their formulation is, and then it’s the missing link, right?

It’s that piece that you’re adding to the oil to make it that much better. You know, the [00:52:00] magical mystery there that we’re trying to solve. I guess the only way to solve this, and I’m kind of not really giving you a question, but making a statement is to then send the sample to you and say, Hey. Is this benefiting me?

Am I just throwing money away by pouring in this additive?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Exactly. And, and here’s the thing too, I, I’d like to add on, you’re not going to hurt anything by experimenting with these oil treatments. I, if you want to see. Go, you know? Absolutely. I mean, we look at hundreds of samples a day that might have ssec in them.

That’s, that’s very, very common. Feel free to run them. See for yourself how the wear levels shake out, because while we hold that, the oil has what you need. At the same time, we don’t see that these additives are going to bring harm. Feel free to run them. Obviously an oil company will probably tell you that an additive might mess with what their oil is doing.

But the thing is, is that these additives we’re talking about in general, they contain elements that. [00:53:00] Often are present in that oil to begin with, so it’s not gonna harm anything. Feel free to experiment. It’s just generally we don’t see that key difference in wear pattern that is a direct result of the additive.

But folks, you know, I mentioned on, on, on my podcast, they will list benefits that they’re noticing something in terms of may, maybe it’s temperature related, maybe it’s, uh, maybe it’s, it’s quieter. Maybe the engine runs quieter, so on and so forth. Stuff that I might not be able to pinpoint, um, in analysis.

So if that’s a benefit, you’re seeing all the better.

Crew Chief Eric: But at the same token, like you said, if you have stuff coming across your desk in particular, you go, Hey man, your zinc levels and your phosphorus are off the chart. You just created Rotella. By adding this additive, you would you recommend and say, Hey, you should really consider removing this additive.

You’re making it worse

Blackstone Joe Adams: if we see a change. And the only thing we can account for it is what you’re running then that’s certainly something, I mean, we have to work as detectives every day as far as looking at, [00:54:00] alright, what might have caused this spike? Or what might have brought about, you know, you had healthy wear levels and then all of a sudden.

Things really took a turn. We want to know the answer, so we’ll, we’ll go back and look at your file and see, okay, you were running this for each oil change and then metal spiked and we don’t see that you did any work, any modifications, you didn’t race, you didn’t do anything. Okay, so let’s go the next step.

So we will absolutely, you know, we will want to comb through the file and see what might be responsible and, and if it does appear to be that, and that’s our only answer. Then there you have,

Executive Producer Tania: I think you kind of answered the, the second question, when do I, it sounds like if the curiosity cat starts scratching at your door, you know, go for it.

Add the additive cocktail and see what happens. But then obviously, you know, the right answer might be. If you’re concerned that you should be adding these additives, perhaps the first step should be send a sample to you guys, see what it’s saying, and then determine, you know, well, you know, my, [00:55:00] my car does have, you know, 250,000 miles and it’s from 19, you know, 85, so, so maybe I should be using X, Y, Z additive over here.

’cause we’re seeing this in the results. But at the same time, if you just decide, well I’ve got 250,000 on the clock, I think I should throw in this additive, it’s probably not gonna hurt anything.

Blackstone Joe Adams: Exactly. And the thing is too, I wouldn’t say frustrating is the right word, but I’m left wondering why often when I see.

An engine that’s been doing perfectly fine and then they’ll say, well, I have to start doing something right. I I, I surely I, I need to start doctoring it somehow. And I, and I, I always wanna bring folks back to the idea that we will be sure to mention like, if, if I see a, any sign of trouble, I, I will let you know, and I will also let you know before we even start throwing words around like excessive or problem.

And that’s the whole point of oil analysis is you get a look before that point. Folks will have excellent results through and through and then, and then they’ll think they have [00:56:00] to do something to improve on that. And that just usually isn’t the case.

Crew Chief Eric: So can you tell if an additive is breaking down or has been basically depleted between those oil intervals that we were talking about earlier?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So active additives, absolutely. The ones that are meant to keep. From accumulating in the crank case that’s directly tied into our TBN test, the total base number. So when we measure the TBN, this is a separate test. It’s $10 on top of the, uh, standard analysis. So folks will request that usually if they’re interested in going longer between oil changes and they already are, or maybe they just plain wanna see how that oil’s holding up.

They wanna add that nuance. A TBN will let you know if those active additives are still doing their job or if they are used up. So that’s something valuable. I would say, not necessity for everybody, especially if you’ve had great report after great report and you really aren’t the type to change something that isn’t broken.

[00:57:00] But it is valuable, especially when you wanna extend those intervals or you’re asking a lot of the engine and you wanna make sure that those active A are still strong, still present in that way. You don’t have to worry about assets going unchecked.

Executive Producer Tania: So for the last question, which do I, you know, which additive do I choose as I’m walking down the AutoZone aisle and I see, you know, 30 of them staring at me in the face.

Presumably you follow what you know, the manufacturer of that additive says in terms of quantity that you add at whatever interval and, and no harm is being done. But have you seen anything where there’s too much of a good thing?

Blackstone Joe Adams: I saw a sample one day where a customer ran an entire sump of Marvel Mystery Oil.

It was all they had in there, and they ran the engine for about five minutes, and then they dumped out the Marvel Mystery Oil and sent it to us.

Crew Chief Eric: How’d

Blackstone Joe Adams: that turn out? So that was a situation where I, in a roundabout way, said, what are you doing? [00:58:00] So, yeah, I mean it’s, it just plain doesn’t make sense. I’ll mention that.

I’m like, Hey. Motor oil comes with things that are there to help you, you know, so, so, so absolutely run a sump of primarily engine oil. But yeah, I mean, people will adjust their concentrations, but at the same time, if I see a heavier dose of arch oil or RevX than what they’re using previously, generally it’s all just gravy.

And, and it’s, and it’s not going to. Result in any discernible change in wear pattern or how the oil’s holding up. So it’s an expensive way to go about it when you keep adding it in there. It just generally doesn’t manifest as a material benefit or net negative.

Crew Chief Eric: So, you know, as track rats, we don’t normally count calories during the weekend.

You know, you look at the nutrition label in the back of the gummy bears and the monster cans and stuff. But when you’re in the big box store and you’re looking at these additives. There isn’t the equivalent nutrition label there, [00:59:00] read all the ingredients, but are there certain keywords on that label that a consumer should be aware of and say maybe stay away from?

Is there anything, in your opinion to note there?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Not in terms of the additive elements, what’s coming in that bottle specifically? Like there’s not gonna be a scenario where you went from running an oil that happens to start with say, 90 parts per million of molybdenum and, and then you bought another one off the shelf that comes with 150.

It’s not going to result in any sort of worrisome change. You mainly wanna rely on that starburst symbol that indicates the API certification. And then from there, with the correct viscosity, you can live with these changes in additives. You can live with a, a balance of boron to molybdenum to calcium that is different between the various brands and blends.

It all comes out in the wash usually when you’re talking about these differences. So yeah, fortunately. It’s easy for the consumer in that they don’t have to worry about. Going too in depth as [01:00:00] far as the label.

Crew Chief Eric: Crack it open, pour it in.

Blackstone Joe Adams: Couldn’t say it there myself.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like a beer right down the hatch.

Blackstone Joe Adams: We’re, we’re gonna get a little more of a debate if we’re going down that, that one.

Executive Producer Tania: So we have a number of folks in our club that actually use Blackstone Labs on a routine basis. And it’s actually gotten me recently thinking, well, maybe I should, uh, set a few samples in myself just outta curiosity sake.

I’ve got a high mileage car, I’ve got a diesel car. If I was interested in, you know, finally taking that leap. How do I engage with Blackstone Labs? What’s that process look like?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So my favorite way to go about it, honestly, is the most direct way possible, which is calling our office. The, the thing is, sure, you can go to our website, blackstone labs.com, you can order a free test kit.

You can do everything online if you need to. You can also email us and go the indirect way as well. But phone call. Here’s the thing, anyone in the building is able to help set you [01:01:00] up with an account. I might field the call if I’m not writing a report. It might be someone in shipping and receiving. It might be, uh, someone who helps log in our samples.

Everyone’s equipped to describe what we do to create an account for you. Get samples sent your way. And the best thing too is if you have any questions about, okay, uh, here’s who I own. Do you have averages for this engine type? Here’s the oil I’m curious about. Then you can go from the account setup to speaking with an analyst.

Just like that. So my favorite way, if I were in the shoes of a customer, I would just give us, give our offices a call, connect with us, and you can get every question you have answered. You can get your account going, get kits coming your way, but of course, going right to the website works too, if that’s more.

Your style.

Crew Chief Eric: So these kits, this is akin to not like, you know, some science fair kit where you’re gonna go home with litmus paper and test it yourself. This is more like the ancestry.com, you know, spit in the tube and send it off to the lab to be tested, right? And people

Blackstone Joe Adams: have sent stranger things [01:02:00] to us than that.

it gets pretty crazy, uh, what people see the word laboratory and, uh, it can extend pretty far. But yeah, what you’re going to get as a kit and it’s, it’s very simple, but still people can be a little thrown off because it’s, it’s outta element. What’s going to arrive to you is a black mailing container with prepaid postage on the side and obviously instructions provided.

So, and again, that’s something where if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. But yeah, then you’re going to have the bottle, the oil goes into, you’re going to have the slip that you fill out. The slip is very important. Please do not send us a kit without any information because. A, we might not be able to get ahold of you.

B. It’s just going to be a runaround process of finding out, okay, well what engine did you sample? That way we can tell you more about it. Very simple, easy to use kit

Crew Chief Eric: and catching the oil as it’s coming out of the oil pan. You don’t wanna be digging it back out of your dirty, reused a million times oil drum.

Right?

Blackstone Joe Adams: Not [01:03:00] optimal. Not optimal, but there’s a lot of ways you can go about it, you know, in, in a valid manner. You can either do it straight from the drain, you can retrieve it from the dipstick if that’s possible for you. And if it’s a situation where you had to scoop it out a dirty pan, okay? We will have to factor in that.

Some elements can be skewed by what was in there already. Nevertheless, if it’s a situation where, you know, there’s a very specific thing you’re looking for, like antifreeze or, or some other contaminant. You can still send it in. We just will have to take the results with a grain of salt. Gotcha.

Crew Chief Eric: So you’re not talking a ton of oil here.

You’re not talking ounces of it. You’re talking maybe a small vial. If you said get it off the dipstick, that’s not very much that you need in order to perform the test. Well,

Blackstone Joe Adams: you can get out of the dipstick tube, but you’re still looking for three and a half ounces. And again, it’s a situation where I’ve had folks send in like literal, like sludge off the dipstick that has happened.

You know, you can’t do too much with it. But yeah, so you can go [01:04:00] through the dipstick tube using a hand pump and draw up a three and a half ounce sample. Obviously you can fudge that amount a little bit, but at the end of the day, you want that amount to ensure that we can do every test that you’re interested in.

Crew Chief Eric: You said that Blackstone started out with diesels specifically doing oil analysis for that, and obviously it’s grown into other things. There’s. All walks of the automotive world from the motorsports guys distill the diesel trucks and everything in between that are interested in getting their oil analyzed.

The big question on a lot of people’s minds is how many samples does Blackstone process in a year? So

Blackstone Joe Adams: that’s a tough one to answer. I don’t have a great answer for you because it has changed every year. I’ve been there in the right direction. It has grown exponentially. So like I can’t even give a good firm answer.

But let’s just take it to me and, and, and what I look at in a day, I’m going to look at at least 50. Myself, myself, and I’m one person in the building. So it, it’s [01:05:00] grown every year. It’s hard to put a number on it, but it’s been great to see the outreach just steadily grow and grow. So, um, I would say another way to think about it, we’re packed to the gills, um, with samples.

So we, we have hardly any room in the building. Hardly so too many to count. Just off the top of my head.

Executive Producer Tania: How much does the service cost? You know, how much does it cost to get a, a sample analyzed?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So you’re looking at $30 right now for a standard analysis, and people hear the word standard. They kind of think that means it’s limited, it’s not, uh, standard.

It covers all your bases as far as wear levels, contaminants, viscosity, you know, the physical properties as a whole nine, that’s $30. And then if you want to add on different tests, then you’re typically looking at about $10 a pop, specialized tests that folks might be interested in if they want extended oil use intervals.

They wanna know acidity, particle count, but for the lion’s share of folks, [01:06:00] you’re looking at $30. And then we might add on a special test here or there if you’re interested.

Executive Producer Tania: While you were talking, I was, uh, on the website real quick and right on the homepage, get a free test kit. And so I, so I clicked it.

So I’m just scrolling down. And as you were talking, you know, it does list there on the side and cost per analysis. And then there’s an interesting note here, just for clarification. It says, once you send your first sample, we automatically send two kits with your info printed on them. I ordered my first kit, I filled it with three and a half ounces of dirty oil.

I send it back and then you guys send me another two fresh kits. Take samples.

Blackstone Joe Adams: That’s right. And that way you have the kits right there to follow up. And the thing is, is you can hang onto these however long you need to. Prepaid postage, but feel free to hang onto them if you’re not doing an oil change for a while.

But having two on hand is nice because that way if you wanna check the transmission, you wanna check a diff, you wanna check something else in that vehicle. You have that other kit on hand.

Crew Chief Eric: When samples are sent in, are they [01:07:00] being tested against the baseline metrics that you have? You, like you mentioned, engine and oil type and things like that.

Or are they being based on me and my profile and my car? And then obviously you need those subsequent tests afterwards and, and my second part of that question, even though that’s like part A and part B of part one is. How do you go about interpreting these results as a first time customer to Blackstone?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So, first time customer, we wanna start with the baseline that is universal averages. Don’t let universal make you think it’s too generic. And as long as we know what you sample, the universal average will be tailored to the specific make and model of what you sent in. So we’re going to dial it into the exact engine type.

And also we’ll even tailor it to vintage as well, if that applies. Like for example, BMWs, if you have an S 65 that’s made from 2011 on, that’s gonna have a different bearing metallurgy. Then S 60 fives [01:08:00] made prior to that. So we will get you the most direct comparison possible as your baseline comparing to other engines of that type that we’ve seen.

But going forward, we will track your samples and keep your data in what’s called the unit location column. So that way whenever you have a report, you can look at your history in that column and see, okay, well my engine generally makes a bit more copper than most 5.0 liter coyotes. So. I know that based on my own averages, even if it’s a little higher than Blackstone’s Universal, I know that’s not terribly concerning.

That’s the baseline, is our universal, which is based on every other engine of that type that we’ve seen. But going forward, we definitely want to look at your data and get more of a wear pattern that’s individual to you.

Crew Chief Eric: So almost like bracket racing, as you guys get more and more data points in there, it actually shifts, right?

So those metrics continue to move as the sample [01:09:00] set for that particular engine, uh, increases.

Blackstone Joe Adams: Exactly. Exactly. I mean, and that’s what we want to do, is get a feel for what’s unique to you. You know, if you’re racing and if you have mods and if you, okay, I have this tune, I have all these different aftermarket parts, what have you.

We wanna take that into account. We don’t wanna look at your results. To say, well, this is different from our universal. You are so screwed, you know, know what’s typical for you. So that’s important to us.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s wonderful. We’re looking at how is my engine performing against itself, measuring the wear, et cetera.

What about the oil itself that I’m using? Is there any baseline that I’m using, you know. Just to throw out a name, Castrol, whatever weight am I in line with, what Castrol would say certain properties of the oil should be over time? Are you guys looking at that as well?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So yes. Physical properties. Now this is gonna be different than any sort of average.

These are parameters that you either meet or you [01:10:00] don’t. So we’re going to look at a viscosity in the expected range. Often this will begin with whatever’s in the MSDS from the given uh, manufacturer. And then we will see if you meet those specs. Do you have a viscosity in the 10 w? 60 range. Do you have a flashpoint that is at the desired temperature?

Obviously there are some things that should never be present like water coolants. We’re also going to look at solid material, which is quantified in the insoluble test. And then we’re gonna see what percent of your sample is insoluble material. Lets you know how oil filtration’s working. So those values are all, you either fit the bill or you don’t averages your wear levels, your oil additives.

That’s more so tailored to whatever becomes typical for you.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, I mean, I don’t know if you’re able to comment based on the data you’ve seen, do you have any trends on, you know, what you would call the top five performing brands?

Crew Chief Eric: What are those top [01:11:00] performing brands?

Blackstone Joe Adams: So at one point, you know, after all these times of saying, you know, we don’t see a difference.

We don’t see a difference. We had to put our money where our mouth was and we had to actually do. A study where we compared, I believe we had AMS oil, we had, um, Royal Purple Super Tech in the mix. We had, I, I know for a fact there was some Castro products in there. We, we cast a wide net and then we went ahead and compared these oils and various engine types and we dialed in the oil change intervals.

We tried to rule out things like mods, you know, anything that might alter the wear profile. This is all in a newsletter, by the way, on our website. So anyone can go ahead and access this data breakdown and look at the differences in wear levels and all that. So we made sure to actually give that detailed breakdown.

From there. We saw so little change in the wear levels, which that’s what [01:12:00] matters to us. So I guess here’s why. I would say, when we talk about not having a favorite brand or blend, if it’s not manifesting and how that engine is wearing, how it’s actually producing metal, if it doesn’t appear to be wearing at a quicker rate, we’re hard pressed to rank them otherwise.

So until we see that, we struggle to see the benefit of such a ranking. So folks will wanna base that on color, on appearance when they change it. On, you know, these sensory benefits, but really we had to go ahead and, and do the actual data mining and after all that, we just didn’t see the difference to provide that sort of ranking.

Folks will still try and do that with, with, with other means, but boy, if it’s not resulting in that engine wearing better than it was, I’m hard pressed to, to play favorites.

Executive Producer Tania: Have you seen a difference in your trend analysis between say, a major, like a mobile one versus Walmart brand or something lesser [01:13:00] known?

Right.

Blackstone Joe Adams: It surprises people, but. Super tech oils are accessing the same ingredient lineup that you’re going to get with the bigger oils, and that also kind of comes down to who’s making cereal and it’s all in the same factory. You know, like they’re accessing the same ingredient list, they’re accessing the same.

Physical parameters. So really a super tech product. Like you can get a Super Tech product that looks in testing indiscernible from say, like a mobile one as far as the, the element breakdown, the levels, it’s not like, uh, you’ll see a situation where it’s mobile one, and then because it’s super tech, it will have like 500 fewer parts per million of calcium strictly because it’s, it’s the Walmart brand.

Often if you want, you can dial in a comparison where you can be really hard pressed to tell the two apart as far as the elements that we will find in the [01:14:00] spectral exam. It’s not that rare for them to be hard to tell apart on that level.

Executive Producer Tania: All right. Well this was a very good conversation. Thank you Joe.

And for all our listeners, if you wanna learn more about Blackstone Labs, be sure to visit their website@ww.blackstonelabs.com or you can follow them on Facebook and Instagram at Blackstone Labor. And be sure to check out Joe’s podcast, slick Talk on all the majors where he gets more in depth on all sorts of oil and vehicle related questions.

Blackstone Joe Adams: Yeah, so Anne, if anyone wants to check out Slick Talk, you can access it on every major podcast platform. If there’s one I don’t know that we’re on, I mean I’m pretty sure we’re everywhere. Please don’t hate me if you happen to find the one platform that we’re not on. But you can find Slick Talk powered by Blackstone Laboratories on every major platform.

You can also find it on YouTube if that’s your route. And if you have any sort of questions about this talk we did today, anything you’d like us to follow up on. We’d be happy to take any topic [01:15:00] suggestions on our social media channels.

Crew Chief Eric: Very cool. Well, thank you again, Joe, for coming on the show. It’s been an absolute blast and we look forward to catching up on your show and all the episodes you’re doing and we’ll get together again soon.

Blackstone Joe Adams: Yeah, absolutely. And that, and that goes too for you guys. If, um, if anyone had a particular point they want us to go. More in depth on, on a, uh, different episode. That’d be cool if I had someone reach, reach out and said they wanted to just contribute all of their cars data to us to study and then, and then feature on the show.

So I don’t know if they’ll go that far, but if anyone reaches out and wants to follow up on, on our talk, that’d be cool with me.

Crew Chief Eric: I got a couple blown up VW Motors you can take apart. So

Blackstone Joe Adams: hey, send, send them. Thank you so much for having me guys.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s right. Listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our Patreon for a follow on pit stop mini. So check that out on [01:16:00] www.patreon.com/gt motorsports and get access to all sorts of behind the scenes content from this episode and more.

Crew Chief Brad: If you like what you’ve 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@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 and [01:17:00] 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.

Highlights

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

00:00:00 Welcome to the Slick Talk + Break/Fix Crossover
00:01:09 The Origin Story of Blackstone Labs
00:02:08 Understanding Oil Analysis
00:03:05 Pinpointing Engine Issues Through Oil Analysis
00:08:04 Detecting Additives in Oil Samples
00:12:28 Transmission and Differential Oil Analysis
00:16:40 Oil Filters and Their Impact on Oil Analysis
00:24:01 Diesel Engines and Oil Analysis
00:30:06 Choosing the Right Oil for Your Engine
00:39:33 Aircraft and Heat Management
00:40:18 Understanding Oil Pressure
00:41:24 Oil Viscosity and Temperature
00:44:08 Choosing the Right Oil Weight
00:49:18 Additives in Motor Oil
01:00:13 Blackstone Labs: How It Works
01:14:04 Conclusion and Contact Information

Learn More

To learn more about Blackstone Labs be sure to visit https://www.blackstone-labs.com/ or follow them on FB/IG @blackstonelaboratories and be sure to check out Joe’s podcast “Slick Talk” on all the majors where he gets more in-depth on all sorts of Oil and Vehicle related questions.

Each engine has a “typical wear profile” – a balance of metals like iron, copper, aluminum, and chromium. When those ratios shift, it’s a red flag. For example, if iron from cylinder liners spikes while aluminum stays low, it could indicate abnormal piston ring wear. Joe shares that even subtle changes, like a steady increase in metal content over multiple oil changes, can signal trouble long before it becomes catastrophic.

And yes, there are “screaming stop signs” too – like thousands of parts per million of metal or the presence of antifreeze or fuel dilution. These are clear indicators that something’s gone seriously wrong.

Can You Use Oil Analysis to Pick the Right Oil?: While some enthusiasts try to outsmart manufacturer recommendations – opting for thicker oils in high-mileage engines or adding aftermarket treatments – Joe cautions against it. “You can’t fix a mechanical problem with a different oil,” he says. Blackstone’s data consistently shows that sticking with factory specs is the safest bet.
Additives: Helpful or Harmful?: Blackstone can often detect popular additives like Turbo Max, Arch Oil, RevX, and Restore because they contain unusual elements like potassium, boron, copper, or lead. While some are harmless, others can mask serious issues or interfere with accurate diagnostics. Joe’s advice? If you’re worried about a coolant leak or bearing wear, skip the additives before sending in your sample.
How Do They Know What’s Normal?: Blackstone doesn’t tear down every engine – they rely on thousands of samples to build a database of expected wear patterns. Even with rare or vintage engines, they can usually find a close match to compare against. And when they do get hands-on, like with a Nissan CVT or Ecotec teardown, it’s to deepen their understanding of specific failure modes.
Beyond Engines: Transmissions and Differentials: Oil analysis isn’t just for engines. Transmissions and differentials have simpler metallurgy, but Blackstone can still detect excessive wear or incorrect fluids. This is especially useful when a vehicle starts shifting poorly after a fluid change – Blackstone can confirm whether the right spec oil was used.
What About Oil Filters and Solids?: Insolubles – tiny solid particles formed when oil oxidizes – can indicate poor filtration or excessive heat. While most filters perform adequately, Joe notes that few customers report which brand they use, making it hard to compare. Still, Blackstone can help you track how your filter performs over time, especially if you’re experimenting with different brands or intervals.
How Often Should You Sample?: Joe recommends building a trend before making big changes. Don’t switch oils, filters, and driving habits all at once based on a single bad sample. Instead, keep variables consistent and let the data tell the story. Once you’ve established a baseline, you can sample less frequently and still catch problems early.
Do Magnetic Drain Plugs Help?: Yes – and no. Magnetic plugs catch visible metal, but oil analysis detects microscopic particles that magnets miss. Used together, they offer a fuller picture of engine health.
Diesel vs. Gasoline Engines: Diesel engines naturally produce soot, which can darken oil and alarm first-time diesel owners. But modern diesel oils are cleaner than ever, and Blackstone’s tests can distinguish between normal soot and problematic contamination. They also spot issues when diesel oils are mistakenly used in gasoline engines (or vice versa), which can lead to wear or emissions problems.

Oil analysis is more than a lab test – it’s a window into your engine’s soul. Whether you’re racing, towing, or commuting, understanding what’s happening inside your motor can save you time, money, and heartache. And thanks to Blackstone Labs, you don’t need to be an engineer to get the insights. So next time you change your oil, consider sending in a sample. Your engine might be trying to tell you something – and Blackstone Joe is ready to listen.

There’s more to this story…

Some stories are just too good for the main episode… Check out this Behind the Scenes Pit Stop Minisode! Available exclusively on our Patreon.

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From Watkins Glen to the Moon: How Motorsports Fueled a Lunar Dream

Tania M

July 13, 2021

From Watkins Glen to the Moon: How Motorsports Fueled a Lunar Dream

What do a bi-turbo V12 Mercedes SL, a veteran’s outreach program, and a lunar racecar have in common? If you’re Mary Hagy, the answer is everything.

Mary Hagy from Moon Mark on Break/Fix Podcast — photo courtesy Mary Hagy

In a recent episode of the Gran Touring Motorsports podcast Break/Fix, host Eric and guest co-host Tania sat down with Mary Hagy – Army veteran, businesswoman, and founder of Moon Mark – to unpack a story that’s equal parts motorsports adrenaline and STEM-fueled ambition. Alongside Moon Mark’s project administrator Marianne Barrea, the conversation traced a path from Watkins Glen to the lunar surface, with plenty of turbocharged detours along the way.

Tune in everywhere you stream, download or listen!

Mary’s love affair with driving began at 15 with a stick shift and quickly escalated to Jeep antics in South Korea during her military service. Years later, her passion for speed and precision led her to HPDE events with Hooked on Driving, where she piloted her SL400 with such ferocity that Eric – her right-seat coach – had to rein her in from target fixating on Mustangs.

But Mary’s story isn’t just about horsepower. It’s about purpose. After noticing how media narratives often painted veterans as broken or dangerous, she launched Our Vet Success and the Triumph Games to spotlight veterans thriving in civilian life. Motorsports became a key component of that mission, offering camaraderie, challenge, and a platform for transformation.

Spotlight

Notes

Let’s talk about Moon Mark – How did you decide to be the first to race on the Moon? Why bother?
How can high school students build space-worthy racers?
Why high schoolers? Why didn’t you choose more advanced racers?
You’re not a space person. How can you pull this off?
Racing is expensive. Space is lots more expensive. How are you managing the financials around this?

and much, much more!

Transcript

The Road to Success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: The Motorsports community is full of interesting people, and the more time I spend in it, the more stories I uncover. And tonight’s guest is no exception. I had the great honor of working with our guest throughout several HPDE seasons in conjunction with Hooked On Driving.

At that time, she was operating a veterans outreach organization known as our vet success, and I even rode right seat in her buy Turbo V 12 Mercedes SL at Watkins Glen. And let me tell you, that thing was an absolute rocket [00:01:00] ship.

Executive Producer Tania: So ladies and gentle drivers, our guest tonight is Mary Hague, a former US Army soldier.

Thank you for your service. She is a renowned Philadelphia businesswoman and currently the CEO and founder of Moon Mark, an organization that captures the adventures of high school students from around the world who are going to compete to design, build, land, and race two vehicles on the moon. Joining Mary with us on the show is also Moon Mark, project administrator Maryanne Bea,

Crew Chief Eric: and as you’ve guessed it, my special guest host tonight is from our drive through series.

You know her as Tanya, who’s filling in for Brad while he’s on vacation. With all that, I’m sure our listeners can’t wait for us to unpack all of this. So how about we head to the moon and back? Welcome to Break Fix. Maryanne. Maryanne.

Executive Producer Tania: Thank you.

Crew Chief Eric: So,

Executive Producer Tania: hey,

Crew Chief Eric: let’s go. Alright, Mary, let’s reminisce in the past a little bit.

Let’s talk about motor sports, your involvement in that world, your passion with cars, [00:02:00] and let’s go back to, you know, where we met, you know, circa, let’s call it the 2016 era. Okay, well you’re a little late

Executive Producer Tania: in the game there, Eric. Because I had a passion for driving since I can remember, and I first learned how to drive with a stick shift.

And in recent times, the paddles are like, okay, okay. But I love that stick. When I was 15 years old, I started driving and by the time I was 18 years old and, and thank you Tanya for introducing me as a military veteran. I really appreciate it. I was in South Korea serving there, and I had, I don’t know who gave me the questionable judgment of the possession of a Jeep, but I I, I drove that thing on about two wheels most of the time, so, oh, yeah.

[00:03:00] Yeah. So, you know, this has been in my blood for a long, long time. You and I, Eric met at Watkins Glen, like you said, and it was through, uh, a series of really, really meaningful things that kind of brought me from being a kid who couldn’t drive other than as I needed to drive to a place where it was really a much more important and meaningful experience, meaning understanding the physics and the engineering and the safety.

And oh by the way, everything to do with the camaraderie of Motorsport. And so that’s where you and I met like some years ago after you know that Jeep, right?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, I would say a long time after that Jeep problem. Hey, hey, hey, hey. I’m kidding. I’m kidding. I’m kidding. [00:04:00] So it sounds like you came about motorsport and racing and the passion for cars.

Honestly,

Executive Producer Tania: I am really glad to tell you that over my lifetime I have. Thoroughly enjoyed driving and driving safe and fast and stuff like that. But you and I encountered each other with the, our Vet Success program.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s correct.

Executive Producer Tania: And as an Army veteran. Um, just a little bit of backstory. After 2010 I, in 2011, you know, coming out of the Great Recession, uh, I started to feel like and understand that the media was portraying military veterans in a victimized way.

That they were homeless, that they were homicidal, that they were suicidal, that they were unemployable. And, and I started to, you know, just be consumed with these messages. I said to [00:05:00] myself, I must do something. To affect this narrative because it’s not right. Military veterans have come out of the military and every human carries around a bag of rocks.

Okay? But 80% of the post nine 11 veterans coming back, they were doing their best to transition, but they were, you know, surrounded by this narrative, right? This media narrative,

Mary & Marianne: right?

Executive Producer Tania: And so that is why I started our vet success, and that’s why I created the Triumph Games. So, long story short, Solomon Rosenthal, does that name ring a bell?

Crew Chief Eric: It does.

Executive Producer Tania: Okay. Solomon Rosenthal and I were sitting around in Philadelphia a few years ago, and I’m talking to him about this, and I’m saying, I’m gonna do this television program because I need to tell stories about [00:06:00] veterans who are successful, right? And he says, well, you gotta have motor sports.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely.

Executive Producer Tania: And, and I said, what? So we created the television program and a part of the competition that we created was motor sports. And that first year the production for CBS sports was at Willg Racing Manor in the Hudson Valley. And, uh, Alan Wilson was so wonderful to welcome us up and Jack Roush Jr.

Provided a wonderful Roush Mustang for our competitors to drive on Alan’s court.

Crew Chief Eric: Here’s the interesting crossover between the story you are telling and a guest we had on not, but a couple weeks ago. So another name you might be familiar with, who was also friends with Solomon Rosenthals, Paul Willams.

And he told the story from his perspective. Oh, because he was invited. Oh,

Executive Producer Tania: Paul was there. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. [00:07:00] Good old

Crew Chief Eric: Pauly. Right. So he tells the story from his perspective as a coach and, and working with Brock Hs Jr. And all these other folks that were at that same event. So on his episode, he talks about this story as well.

So it’s a small, small world, uh, you know, when we’re talking about motorsport.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, it really is. And it’s a wonderful world. It is a wonderful world. Paul is a super guy and I also wanna call out Papa Joe Ella. It’s his birthday today. Right? And he’s the head of NASA Northeast. Mm-hmm. So NASA Northeast came to Wilson Manor and trained the athletes so that they could perform and.

You know, compete, uh, effectively and safely, you know, so NASA and HOG booked on driving both of those. So what you’re hearing me say is that the motor sports community is not only small, but it’s really, [00:08:00] really a wonderful experience to be together and make things happen. That’s what we did. And, and then the next year, the next series, Solomon and Brian Humphreys, his cohort in crime, we created a, a racetrack on the sea slope of West Point Military Academy.

Whoa. Uhhuh? Yeah. On the other side of that, I got the bug.

Crew Chief Eric: You don’t say,

Executive Producer Tania: oh, yeah. Oh yeah. I got it. I got it. I got it. That’s why I ended up spending as many hours. On the track with people I care about and who are having a great time as I possibly can. And this actually influences the story of Moon Mark.

Interesting. ’cause if it were not for the time that I have spent in motor sports, whether it be at an [00:09:00] HPDE event or it be in, you know, volunteering, uh, or being a part of the pit crew in NASCAR and IndyCar and ISAI, I mean, I just had to be there. And it has influenced how we are ending up racing on the moon.

Crew Chief Eric: I, a woman of action. I, I absolutely love it. And I have to add a little color to this. So when we got together in the 2016 timeframe as you were there, frequenting Watkins Glen, just like I do, I’ll never forget, I of, if it was Micah Rigo and Chris Lou and, and a couple others, they came up to me and they said, Hey.

We need to put you in the car with the TV lady, right? And I’m like, what are you, what are you talking about? Just, just go out there, don’t, you don’t have to worry about it. Don’t, don’t just, you’ll be okay. Just get in the right seat. And I’m a coach, a veteran coach, and I’m like, come on. Okay, what, whatever.

And I’m like, are you guys sure? Oh yeah, we’ll stick her out in advance, she’ll be fine. I’m like, what are you guys talking about? I get in the car with you and I had met you casually because you guys were filming and doing everything you were doing. And I glommed onto the whole [00:10:00] idea of what you guys were doing.

’cause I was already invested with, you know, wounded warriors and helmets off to heroes and things like that. So for me, what you guys were doing really resonated. And I’m like, okay, they’re gonna stick me in the car with this lady. I’m like, whatever. And then I see your car and I’m like, oh boy, all black Mercedes SL convertible.

And I’m like, wow. So we get out and I didn’t know what to expect. I’m be totally honest with you. About turn two, you lit up those turbos and it was like, oh, we are in for a treat and I gotta, I gotta tell the audience, Mary can drive. Okay. I was blown away. Now we did work on a couple of little pointers here and there, but the one thing I remember and it, it’s one of the few students, and I’m gonna, I’m gonna put the label student on you that I’ve had where I’ve actually had to kind of pull the reins back and be like, stop target fixating.

’cause you are hunting people on track. ’cause that Mercedes is wicked fast. My biggest fear was that we were gonna run out of brakes ’cause it’s a big, heavy car and there was [00:11:00] no problem going where we needed to be. It was just making sure that we could slow down. But that was an absolute epic ride.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, well thank you Eric.

It was such a pleasure, uh, to, to, uh, do that with you. And, and my memory of that particular round with you that you’re talking about is I was chasing a Mustang.

And I was like, come on baby, come here, come to mama.

Crew Chief Eric: The red mist was ever apparent, that’s for sure. But no, I, I was like, no,

Executive Producer Tania: no, no, no, no, no, no. I, I, I didn’t have a lot of red mist. Um. Just laser focus, all that track.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh yeah, like a missile.

Speaking about the successes you had with our vet success, I was wondering if you might have crossed paths with one of our previous guests on break fix, which is Peter Klein from Vet Motorsports. So if there was any overlap with that. And then my [00:12:00] second question is, what happened to the Mercedes and what are you driving now?

So I know they’re totally unrelated questions, but I gotta throw ’em out there.

Executive Producer Tania: I have not had the privilege of communicating or connecting with Peter, although I am aware of his work. And you know, one of the things that happens in the course of creating things, which is what I do, is that you go in and with a particular intent to impact and then you see the impact and then you figure out is this still the right place or are others coming in, and things like that.

So there are some amazing people and organizations that are helping veterans in the Motorsport world right now.

Mary & Marianne: Absolutely. And

Executive Producer Tania: you know, when I looked around and I, and I recognized that, I said, okay. This is good. This is really good. So I have not met leader, but I would, I would love an introduction [00:13:00] to him and always glad to talk with folks that are supporting veterans and, and so are we.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. And I, I’d like to think that Vet Motorsports is definitely leading the charge. They’re at the pointy end of that stick when it comes to veterans outreach and the con, you know, and that intersection with Motorsport and all that. And for our listeners who might not be aware of what we’re talking about, go back and review the Vet Motorsports episode that we did with Peter Klein and he explains their entire, you know, process and the program and everything like that.

Awesome amounts of detail. So let’s get back to, let’s get back to the car stuff though. So that Mercedes, that big black Mercedes, what happened to that thing? Is it still around? And if not, what are you driving? Now? Now

Executive Producer Tania: I wanna do tell you, ’cause this is really important. My SL was a 400 and I took a four 50 on the tractor and I didn’t like it at all.

I had to have that 400 because I just melded into it. She was such a [00:14:00] beautiful,

Crew Chief Eric: is that from the torque? Is that from the torque pushing you into the seat from all the acceleration?

Executive Producer Tania: Uh, yeah. Yeah, that was it. Totally. Okay. Now I’ll tell you what happened to that car. So I now live in Northern Nevada in the beautiful, beautiful foothills of the Sierras overlooking Reno.

Uh, I drove across country in that car, and I have to tell you. I didn’t spare the horses. That was a fast cross country was a cannonball. It was not a cannonball. But thank you Tanya. Thank you Tanya. Sounds like she didnt

Crew Chief Eric: spare the cowboys either. Good lord.

Executive Producer Tania: So you gonna love this, this story because Maryanne and I recently just traversed the same road. It’s called the Loneliest Road in [00:15:00] America. Okay? It’s Route 50. You come outta Utah and you come across to Nevada, but you come around to pass and shit. Howdy. That’s a nice ribbon. A road right there.

And I said, I said at the time now, now this is before Maryanne was with me. I didn’t do this with Maryanne. I only hit the one oh oh like a couple of times before she said Mary. Mary.

Crew Chief Eric: But while you were asleep,

Executive Producer Tania: honestly, I couldn’t, I couldn’t even fall asleep. Tell her what, what I drove while she was asleep.

Mary & Marianne: I slept with my hand gripped to the side of the car. Just, you know, just waiting for it.

Crew Chief Eric: A white knuckle sleep. Can you believe that’s, that’s like me on, that was like me on track in the right seat. It must be a right seat thing.

Executive Producer Tania: So, so I’m driving, uh, and, and I got my little [00:16:00] dog. I like, I get little, my, my little brown dog and I’m saying, oh man, you know what? I need to see if there’s a regulator on this thing.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh wow. Of

Executive Producer Tania: course you do. Oh yeah, Roger. Oh yeah, I did. And, and there’s nothing. I mean, I mean, it’s the great basin. It is gorgeous.

It is absolutely beautiful.

Crew Chief Eric: So what, what does it look like at 178 miles an hour?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t even want it. Allegedly nothing. Allegedly. I’m so not confessing to that. I’m only gonna tell you that the regulator didn’t tip. Ah, so did you have like spare fuel cans? Any trunk or something?

Crew Chief Eric: See, only Mercedes going down Route 50 with Jerry cans on it.

Like mad Max,

Executive Producer Tania: but, but, but the tire shred.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh.

Executive Producer Tania: Just driven across country. You know that car that you know, [00:17:00] Eric, there’s no spare tire.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Probably run flats. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh yeah, those run flats. Oh, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They work really well until

Crew Chief Eric: you.

Executive Producer Tania: Speed. Limit. Limit. You’re supposed to drive miles 50 miles an hour, just like she was verifying whether there was a regulator or not.

She was verifying the max speed rating on the,

Mary & Marianne: she found out.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, 1 55 is not so, yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: so I end up 80 miles east of the closest town, which is Fallon, Nevada. So even if I decide to run out the run flats, I am going there. Right? This is a two lane road. There’s no place to pull off. I finally found some utility thing, right? Utility something or other [00:18:00] and, and I pulled off there and I called a friend of mine who’s with the CIA for 29 years, and I said, Carl, I don’t know if you might.

Somehow hear that. I’m not gonna be out of this, but my bones are here. See, I was gonna say, you call aaa, but who needs AA when you got CIA? No. Oh no. Oh no. Somebody queue up the secret agent man soundtrack. I called the people and I said, Hey, your run flat tires are shit. Okay. Um, and can you please come pick me up seven hours?

Oh, there’s this weird noise engine. I se it’s, it really is. It’s that long. Okay. It was seven hours later and it was, I, I got no complaints ’cause it’s a beautiful day. Um, and I was off the road. I got my little brown dog. So the way that I arrived into Nevada for the first time was on a tow [00:19:00] truck with my car on the tow truck and sitting in the front seat with the driver who was very nice.

With an escort, you mean you arrived, escorted into Nevada

Mary & Marianne: CIA,

Executive Producer Tania: was an all black tinted tow truck, but

Crew Chief Eric: nonetheless undercover Crown Victoria in front of the tow truck too.

Executive Producer Tania: So Eric, that’s a long-winded way of saying by the time I got here with that beautiful car, which is the most wonderful car that I’ve ever loved, I also have a very steep driveway. It doesn’t do well in snow at all.

So you don’t

Crew Chief Eric: say

Executive Producer Tania: So I had to, um, I had to get a new one and I still do have a Mercedes.

Crew Chief Eric: A G wagon, please tell me it’s a gwa.

Mary & Marianne: If she did, I’d steal it. [00:20:00]

Crew Chief Eric: You and every soccer mom in LA, right? Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: yeah. No, it’s not a G wagon, but it is an all wheel drive. Very cool. And she’s got some pep in her step.

Mary & Marianne: She’s faster than my car, I’ll tell you that.

Oh, you

Executive Producer Tania: should know you drove it.

Mary & Marianne: And listen, I may not be a speed demon, but I think I got her up almost. I think I hit a hundred a couple times, which is like pretty fast for me.

Crew Chief Eric: So I’m gonna ask, before we transition to talking about Moon Mark, I do wanna ask one question. So. Has it always been Mercedes? Was that the big draw? Was, is the goal always been Mercedes or is that what you feel is like the sexiest brand out there or the sexiest car? Or is there something else that is maybe above that that you’re still kind of aspiring and reaching for?

Executive Producer Tania: Hmm mm-hmm. What a question.

Crew Chief Eric: Um, normally I just ask point blank, what’s the sexiest car of all time, in your opinion? I figured I’d make it a little bit more interesting.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, I I’ll answer that. I’ll answer that [00:21:00] question, but the other question you answered or you’re asked, so it hasn’t always been Mercedes.

I love

Crew Chief Eric: Audis. Oh, okay. So,

Executive Producer Tania: oh yeah. You and your tt.

Crew Chief Eric: You and your tt. That’s right. You remember?

Executive Producer Tania: I do. I absolutely do. I love Audis and I thoroughly enjoyed them. The SL 400 that you and I had the privilege of sharing was my second one, and I had also driven a four 50 and a five. They’re just really, like you said, they’re really heavy cars, but the 400 was just exactly right for me.

Nice. So we’ll have to, I, I’m, I’m holding off on my sexiest car answer though.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’s good. We’ll hold it, we’ll hold it for later. That’s okay. And you’re a good company. ’cause Tanya’s a big Mercedes fan too. She’s usually at the top of her list.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, I’m.

And the sl hundred is a beautiful car, always. [00:22:00] It so is I. Um, yeah. You know, we had, we had a really nice time together. Right. So let’s start going back. Moon Mark, we talked about in the intro, you know, high school kids and designing some sort of vehicle that was gonna race on the moon. And, and people are probably wondering, what the heck, what is this episode about?

And, and really stepping back, it’s, it’s very, for people that are familiar with STEM, science, technology, engineering, mathematics, this sounds, and you will correct me, but it’s highly STEM focused, it’s outreach to high school students. I’m a engineer by degree as well. So in, in university I was involved in a couple different outreach programs with one of my professors and we didn’t do things nearly as epic as moon mark.

I mean, we were, you know. You always did the classic drop an egg and, you know, don’t let it break. Or, you know, we did filtration experiments and [00:23:00] probably the most sophisticated one we did was, uh, you know, having the kids, when we had high schoolers come in and basically do a hemodialysis machine and, and we had stimulated blood and they were filtering out, you know, stuff, whatever.

We, I don’t even remember what we put in it. That’s, that’s so,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s so pedestrian. You know, Mary’s full send, she can’t just do that kind of stuff.

Executive Producer Tania: No, I mean, we’re sending vehicles to the moon and racing ’em. It doesn’t get better than this. Tell us how the heck did this come about? I welcome that question because Eric, I think you may appreciate this and it’s related to Watson’s Glen.

So, while I was still living in Philadelphia, I went to a robotics competition on a Saturday afternoon. I didn’t have anything else to do, so

Crew Chief Eric: I went to see things people say all the time.

Executive Producer Tania: I went to see these high school students compete in a robotics competition. You know, I [00:24:00] had some wonderful people that, that welcomed me there.

And they introduced me to, um, some young people and one of the, the students said, Mary. Would you like to see our pit? And I went, oh, I’m done.

Oh heck yes, let’s go. All of the teams had their robots in pits and they were working on them to compete much as we see, you know, in motor sports. So I came out of there and I said, I really wanna work with young people. And then somebody along the line told me that somebody was going to the moon. And, and I went, moon, I thought we were done with the moon.

I thought we were gonna Marx, right? But if, if somebody’s going to the moon, we’re going to get kids work on that lander and it’s gonna land on the moon [00:25:00] and it’s gonna be a way for that generation. To have a defining moment that means something to them. And so there’s, you know, a bunch of backstory behind that.

It took me about almost two years talking and talking and talking about it with different people and stakeholders and opportunities and things like that. And I just was not at all making any headway. And I, I was, you know, it was kind of like perplexing because I said, why don’t people get that space?

Commercialization is here now and this generation needs to have skilled workforce to do it and stuff like that. And I just said, hush up Mary. You need to listen to what people are telling you. And what they were telling me was that they could not. Contemplate high school kids being on the moon or having their [00:26:00] work on the moon.

The repeated message that I kept getting was, Mary, you silly foe. You need to understand that it’s gonna take hundreds of millions of dollars and decades to do what you’re saying. And I knew differently because. I’m an entrepreneur and I, I looked at the market. I knew what we could do for what we could do it, but the messaging was not right.

I could not get the support behind it.

Crew Chief Eric: I just like the fact that in Mary’s style and flair and what I like to call bravado, she has basically told all the naysayers, okay, boomer, we’re going to the moon. Right? And I love it and I applaud you for it.

Executive Producer Tania: And so this is what I mean, Eric, by reckoning back to another time when I was at Watkins Glen and I’m there in the paddock and I’m just looking around, you know, it dawned on me that so much of my [00:27:00] really, really rich experience.

In motor sports, not meaning, you know, just going out and having fun and racing around and stuff like that. The meaning of it, the physics behind it, the engineering behind it, the problem solving the technology, and I love, love, love that you do. Build, break, fix, repeat. That’s what you do. Mm-hmm. And that’s what we’ve done with Moon Mark.

And I’m looking around and I’m saying, okay, there’s so much analogous work here between aerospace and rockets and things like that, which I know nothing about. And these really cool people that are on the racetrack, right?

Mary & Marianne: Yeah. Uh,

Executive Producer Tania: and I said, alright, we’re gonna race on the moon. That’s how we got to be a race on the moon.

Because anything that you do in either one of these industries. Is not only useful to young [00:28:00] people who wanna find their paths, whether it’s in space. And on the track, uh, in medicine, whatever it is. But if you give ’em something that’s compelling and you wrap around an experience, then you can really make a difference.

And that’s how Moon Mark came about. I mean, that’s really very incredible. I, I can’t even imagine thinking back in high school and, and, and this being a project to work on. I mean, it’s just. Literally out of this world

Crew Chief Eric: to think about. Absolutely. And you know, I’m gonna nerd out here for a minute because Mary, I think you touched on something really important, which is what we oftentimes reference on this show as car adjacent, right?

A lot of things that we talk about aren’t necessarily completely tied to vehicles or even motorsport in that way, but it’s interesting how, if you play the Kevin Bacon game, how they’re all really related. And what you touched on and alluded to was the intersection between motorsport and aerospace. And a lot of people don’t realize that there is a blending there, especially when you look at Formula [00:29:00] One level technology.

There’s a lot of aerospace influence in that. And little known fact when I was a lot younger and you know, earlier in my career I worked for British Aerospace and one of my goals was to go work on the McLaren team, and I also signed up to do engine management on helicopters. That’s a whole nother story.

We can talk about that another day. But you know, let’s say I’m not doing that today, unfortunately. SOB story there. But what, what I’m getting at is, if you look at the history of cars and airplanes and what is now aerospace, they’re very tightly coupled, right? The Wright brothers first flight was in 1903.

The first car was invented in 1897. Thank you, Mercedes. But if you look at famous car manufacturers and builders, they got their influence from airplanes and from aeronautics and from aerospace. Let’s take Porsche as an example. They were building airplane engines. Before they were building cars Lotus.

Right. Colin Chapman also developed his first Lotus based on [00:30:00] airplane technology that he learned in the RAF, you know, stuff like that. So there’s multiple manufacturers that started that way. So there’s an interesting blend.

Executive Producer Tania: You don’t mention SOB in this

Crew Chief Eric: Born from Jets. Yes, I know. Uh, I’m glad somebody remembered Saab and for the one listener that has one out there, uh, I congratulate you on still having it moving on.

Uh, but no, I, I, it’s interesting, right? And one feeds the other in some ways. And so maybe your mission is to go to Mars, but you gotta start somewhere. And I heard many of people that, you know, when I was coming up, you know, in a different era, I was like, I went to work as an intern for Ford Aerospace. And then you scratch your head for a second and say, wait, what?

Ford Aerospace, how does that work? Right? So there’s a lot of interesting things out there, so you gotta open your mind to it. So I’m, I’m really behind this. I think this is a super cool idea. The other thing I looked at is there’s some pretty big names backing this. If you look at the Moon Mark website, especially folks from the racing community, names that [00:31:00] our audience might be familiar with.

Folks like Scott Elkins, who is, you know, famous from FIA, but also the Motorsport Safety Foundation. You have Ross Bentley on that list, you have a bunch of other folks from the Motorsport world. So I thought that was kind of cool. So how did you tie all these people together? How did you convince them that, you know, this is viable?

Executive Producer Tania: There’s a, uh, you know, a pretty cool story. I don’t know why everything leads back to Watkins Glen. All

Crew Chief Eric: roads lead to the Glen

Executive Producer Tania: All wa Roads lead to Watkins Glen. So when I was, uh, at Watkins Glen for one of the events, I met Ross Bentley and we had a really great conversation and it’s, you know, a panic kind of conversation and I learned a lot from him and we parted ways.

So when I moved to, uh, Northern Nevada, the thing that I immediately went looking for is, where’s the nearest track and what am I gonna do? Right? So [00:32:00] the SCCA was having an event at Thunder Hill, and so I said, well, I’m gonna stop out there and see them. So I drove over there, and

Crew Chief Eric: Mary, you said you went from your new place to Thunder Hill, so for you, that’s a hop, skip, and a jump.

But for anybody else who looks it up on Google Maps, that’s a 219 mile drive. So it’s not like it was in your backyard, but that’s, uh, knowing the stories you’ve already told, it didn’t take you very long. But so,

Executive Producer Tania: and I go in and I’ve not been to the track before. When I go in, I immediately see all of these cars parked in front of the building and I said, well, this must be where we are.

So I went in there and lo and behold, the, the place was filled. And Ross was talking, he was having a session, and I’m like, I didn’t know Ross was here this weekend. And I said, well, I’m gonna sit down and learn something. So David Gray, [00:33:00] God bless him, who owns, uh, hooked on driving and it was their event. I, I wandered into the wrong event.

That’s, that’s a, that’s a great story. So I wandered into the wrong event and I, uh, learned a lot in the session. Uh, and then I approached Ross afterwards, and David, you know, welcomed me. I, I, I told him, I said, I know this is gonna sound, I know this is gonna sound a little bit out there, okay, but we’re gonna race on the moon and I would love to have you work with us on that.

And Ross’s first reaction was. You had me at Moon, but you know, that’s the kind of person he is and he’s just a really, really super supporter for us as well as obviously, you know, has deep technical expertise. So he introduced me to Scott Elkins. [00:34:00] And so Scott is actually gonna design the track on the moon.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow.

Executive Producer Tania: Mm-hmm. It’s pretty cool. Now, the person that you didn’t mention, who I’m surprised about, is Frank Stephenson. He’s designed Clarence Ferraris menus. He just is a freaking amazing, not only human being, but an amalgam of art and science in auto sports. And also because, you know, he, he now has a, a really great portfolio in automated aviation.

Crew Chief Eric: This is a great way to segue over to Maryanne when you’re talking about Frank Steffenson and the design of the cars and things like that. So, let’s talk a little bit about the parameters of this particular event and the logistics and what the students are gonna do and what they’re designing towards and, and things like that.

So, can you unpack that for us and kind of give us an idea of what the competition is like?

Mary & Marianne: Absolutely. Before we talk about the [00:35:00] competition itself, which is gonna be coming in 2022, what we did was we created a challenge for students to kind of get a feel of what they were capable of essentially. And also, you know, wanted to see if what we were designing was of interest to them too.

And you know, we had a lot of people, like Mary said earlier, every time we told somebody that what we were doing, they’re like, no way, that’s not gonna happen. Or they would say, wow, I wish I could, I had that opportunity when I was in high school. So it was a good way for us to kind of like test the waters.

So we came up with a lunar race car design challenge, and Mary and I really just sat down together and hammered out everything and it became. Just a really awesome initiative that we did. So we put it out there. We had 35 teams, essentially from 11 different countries, which we then whittled down to six teams who went forward with the competition.

So we like to say, you know, when we’re talking about building race cars for the moon, we do this with parental guidance essentially, because we really wanna make sure that these cars work. Um, but we [00:36:00] also wanna give these kids, you know, freedom to create and, and do what they’re best at. And so we gave them specification, we gave them guidelines as to how to create it, what they were going to need, and, and what it was gonna be able to withstand, you know, on the moon and the different environments and things like that.

When we created it, I kept thinking to myself when I was talking to Mary about it, we used the term steam instead of stem, which includes the A with for arts, you know, and I am, I’m an A, didn’t get super into science or because I didn’t have initiatives like this when I was in school. So. When I was talking to her, I was like, I don’t know how these kids are gonna do it.

And I was a little doubtful myself. I was like, there’s no way these kids are gonna be able, these high school students are gonna be able to cars that could actually run on the moon. I was looking at the specification and Mary was like, Marianne, you had to give him a chance. You’d be surprised what these people like.

You know what these kids can do. So I was like, all right. So we put it out there and the results were incredible. We had the six teams that competed, so over the course of four weeks, they would submit videos that were answering key questions throughout the [00:37:00] challenge of how their design was going. And so we weren’t asking them to actually build it, it was just to design, you know, what it would look like and you know, all the specifications between like what parts and things like that.

So we ended up with four winning teams, and we had different categories that each team won in, and those four winners actually got a thousand dollars to donate to their charity. So that was like a really cool initiative that they. Kind of like inspired them to do it. Like, Hey, if we do this, we can, we can help our community.

So I saw that as, you know, a really cool way for them to, to motivate them through the challenge. But by the end of it, we came out with two lunar viable racers essentially, that were cleared by our, uh, engineering teams, in our aerospace engineers that were from opposite side. You know, we had one team from Argentina, one team from China.

So watching the kids go through this process and, and seeing exactly what they’re capable and the fact that they actually did design two, you know, very feasible. Options for us really helped us kind [00:38:00] of realize that we were on the right track. Like this is definitely possible. These kids definitely have the motivation, they have the skills.

So it was really just figuring out how we wanna frame it. So that was a really great test pilot to know what we’re gonna be doing in, in 2022.

Executive Producer Tania: I think I have a question in terms of the, the kids that are participating in this. So the race is supposed to happen, so next year, 2022, sort of TVD. So are, are these kids, are any of these kids gonna be graduated from high school and, and if so, will they still be able to continue obviously in the program?

Absolutely. That’s, that’s pretty exciting. I do wanna caveat that as we’ve gone along here, COVID has really kicked us in the sheds. Like everybody. So the fact of what we’re doing with Moon Mark is global. It’s not us kids.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s galactic.

Executive Producer Tania: Nobody owns the moon. Everybody, every human from birth has had an experience with the moon.

Our goal is, we say in the prime [00:39:00] directive, right Marianne, the prime directive is to reach and engage as many people on earth and in space as possible. COVID has prevented us, for example, this summer. We’re fortunately coming through what we hope will be the worst of it, but we can’t bring in a lot of kids from around the world, right?

It’s just not feasible. So, um, we’re doing a lot of other things that will give rich experiences beyond that. While we can

Crew Chief Eric: start with the basics. How big are these things?

Mary & Marianne: The design that we put out there for the kids, I think they were about 11 pounds, was the requirement for us. So they were pretty, they’re pretty small.

Crew Chief Eric: So like an RC car, basically a remote control car.

Mary & Marianne: Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: Thereabouts. Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: So to put that part in context, the market cost to launch on a rocket and then on a lander, and then land on the moon is $1.2 [00:40:00] million a kilo

Crew Chief Eric: per kilo. Wow. Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: Yep. Per kilo. So

Crew Chief Eric: 2.2 and change kilos per pound. Right.

Executive Producer Tania: Talking you so funny. It’s like, uh, after, after a while, it’s like, uh, what? You know,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s all monopoly money. It’s okay.

Executive Producer Tania: Um, you know, it’s not monopoly money, but what it is is a change. It’s a pivot in space commercialization. Right? And this is something that we’ve been able to see over the last couple of years.

It’s the same thing with racing and spacing. So with racing, it’s very expensive,

Mary & Marianne: right?

Executive Producer Tania: It’s always been very expensive. You’ve got the name, you’ve got the money, you’ve got a ride. You don’t got those. You don’t gotta ride. And that’s one of the things that really has impacted me over the past few years, that along with being in the pits and looking at [00:41:00] the stands and seeing lots of empty seats.

Right. That’s really, really bothered me because that means that the sport is not doing, and this is before COVID, the sport is not drawing people as it should, and so we need to get more young people into the sport. That doesn’t change the reality of you gotta name, you got money, you got a ride. Exactly.

So I think that there’s also a potential for pivoting for the sport as well as looking at how, for example, SpaceX has, because of commercialization, brought down the cost of getting anything into space. So I kept hearing again and again and again. Mary, you can’t do this because it’s gonna be hundreds of millions of dollars.

It’s gonna take decades. And I’m looking at the people that are saying this to me and [00:42:00] their frame of reference and their filter is, is nasa, right? Right. This is what, you know, 50 years ago and, and 50 years, hence this is what it’s taken to get into space, but not now. And that’s what, uh, I’m looking at is the juxtaposition.

For motor sports is, maybe this time is not now for kids who wanna come and young people that wanna come into the sport and how can we find opportunities for them to do that, right? If that’s what they wanna do and not be confined by the constraints that we know have existed for a long time. I mean, I’d be remiss not to.

Uh, if you listen to our drive through series, I’d be remiss somehow not to bring up Tesla or Tesla adjacent. You mentioned SpaceX, right? So I mean, that’s an Elon Musk company. Whatever you feel towards [00:43:00] Elon or, or Tesla or SpaceX, I mean, it takes him and those kind of companies or someone like him to be a disruptor.

The status quo because until it becomes, and mainstream’s a strong word, but until more and more people are trying to do these things, like go into space, the cost can’t come down. You know, something as simple as solar panels, the first time someone came up with a solar panel to power homes, they were astronomically priced and everyone said, this will never be mainstream because the cost is prohibitive.

But now we’ve already seen over the last decade, the price has really come down and it’s only gonna further come down as, as more manufacturers come online, as technology improves. This is pretty incredible experience for these young kids around the world to take part in this and, and get to. Who knows what comes out of this.

Maybe some new, something is invented that cuts costs or, or does something better that, you know, NASA or even SpaceX or you know Virgin Galactic are [00:44:00] able to use in the future. And its technology that. Become something that the world is using and these kids can, you know, say one day hopefully that they were a part of it.

I mean, it’s really incredible.

Crew Chief Eric: But I do wanna circle back because you know, my imagination is still pretty good. So I’m trying to figure out how this is all really gonna work. So I’m putting the money aside, like suspension of disbelief, right? Which you have to do with a lot of science fiction I envision.

Face X rocket. They’re like, yeah, we’re not going to the moon, we’re going to Mars, but we’re gonna drop off your package like the UPS guy, kicking it down the hallway in an apartment building, and your RC car is then gonna land on the moon via parachute, and then the race starts. So am I totally off base here, Marianne.

How is this gonna work?

Mary & Marianne: SpaceX does take us to space. We still have to have vessel that will land us on the moon. So there are multiple companies that are doing lunar landers, so putting our racers on a lunar lander that will land us on the moon, that will then, you know, by robotic arm, drop us on the surface.

And [00:45:00] within those landers, and obviously on our cars too, there’s going to be footage from a lot of different angles. You know, all the different machinery has cameras on them. So not exactly dropping it off, but kind of with the robotic arm and kind of like, you know, setting it down. So pretty much. And then, uh, once they’re on the ground, they will take off and they’ll, they’ll start racing.

So there’s gonna be a little like time to get, you know, everything accu acclimated once they’re on the ground. I think there’s a few people who wanna race ’em. So

Executive Producer Tania: looking at your, your site a little bit, I mean, it seems like that part is still under development, like logistically the actual race piece.

’cause that’s where my question is, is like. Which robot is going out and putting cones down or something. Marking the track.

Crew Chief Eric: Alright. Alright, so that dovetails, that dovetails into my question, which was, which Motorsport discipline does this most closely relate to? Are we talking about off-roading? Are we talking about drag racing, auto crossing rally?

Is it gonna be a circuit track? What? What kind of race is this?

Executive Producer Tania: Oh hell [00:46:00] yes.

Mary & Marianne: I knew she was gonna wanna say that.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s gotta compete five different segments. First is the drag race followed by the off road payload test.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s

Executive Producer Tania: gonna end up like a episode of road kill. But anyway, it’s gonna pick up some Blue Rocks at the end and bring them back to pit lane.

I, I really appreciate your question Tanya. And as an engineer, you know, you wanna know how this can happen. Thank heaven. Mary’s not figuring that out. Okay, that would be really scary. But we’re surrounded by an incredible group of people both on the race side and the space side that are philosophically aligned with us.

Meaning we are all intending for this to be a generation defining moment for young people. And so we need to give them as much opportunity and flexibility as possible. But also, as [00:47:00] Maryanne was saying, to have adult supervision so that when what we have up there actually races actually goes.

Crew Chief Eric: I need adult supervision at the track too.

Executive Producer Tania: it’s that’s, that’s so true, Eric. It’s so true. And it’s one of the things that I saw as one of the, like you say, adjacent things between auto, sports and aerospace. When we get there, the lunar day is 14 days long, then it’s done. That means that our electronics are gonna fry and stuff like that. So we’re gonna get there, and then we’ll have a couple of days of the lander, you know, adjusting and making sure that all of the, the payloads are doing what they’re supposed to do.

And then we drop down, uh, on the surface as we get closer to the launch date, you know, where we’re planning to land is [00:48:00] at the South Pole of the moon. And so the landing site will come into Sharper Relief and we have people on our team that are gonna enable us to examine. We’re gonna be able to understand like within a hundred meters.

Of where the land is gonna land, we’ll be able to figure out and we’ll do this well ahead of time, how to geo map that whole area and figure out different tracks. And so yeah, we’ll do a drag race. Yeah, we’ll do an off-road race. Uh, we’ll do a bunch of stuff at the end of that. It’s really important to know the racers that we put up there are not just gonna sit there as space jump.

They are going to have a scientific purpose. Right now our plan is for 30 years. Oh wow. After we [00:49:00] are finished racing, we’ve got those things in place.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, we could probably spend a lot of time really nerding out on the requirements of the vehicles and getting into specifics, but every little facet of the car, of this lunar racer is going to be intricate down from the suspension to the tires, to the propulsion system and, and all these different kinds of things.

There’s tons to read about on the website, but I think the one thing, the killer thing is gonna be despite all that, and, and to get you the most followers and the most likes, is you’re gonna have to do some sick. Lunar burnouts with whatever these racers are. So you gotta add that to the list of requirements.

Must be able to achieve a burnout on the moon. You awesome.

Mary & Marianne: Burnout on the moon might cause some, you know, disruption to our cameras just because regular lingers, you know, the, the material on the moon once it, how

Crew Chief Eric: awesome would look though. Come on now.

Mary & Marianne: It would be pretty cool.

Executive Producer Tania: Moon dust for us lay people is gonna cover the camera lens.

That’s right, that’s right. Going back to [00:50:00] your question or your comment, Tanya, about what, what about technology in this. So what we are finding is as we are creating and making this happen, we are accelerating technology. You know, we’re thinking, oh, we’re just go up there and build the race. Yeah, no, that’s not, that’s not happened.

We have to figure out a lot of way. Uh, if, if, if you wanna get an Apollo kind of video from the moon, that can happen. But what we need is something much more than that. What we are challenging our partners to do is really to come up with solutions that accelerate technology in ways that will also enable future moon exploration or Mars exploration or whatever.

So it’s, it’s a pretty interesting process. I mean, logistically, there’s just so [00:51:00] much to, to do, let, let alone just, oh, the design of the track, but just. Everything. I mean, my head is just reeling through how are you doing all the camera recording and making sure you have all the right angles. How are you controlling these things?

Or is somebody sitting here on earth like they’re playing a video game, watching it through a screen? Is it somehow you guys map out the track and then you prerecord instructions into these, you know, vehicles and, and they go for it at 1.1 million a kilo, 1.2, 1.2, excuse me. That, that, that 0.1 adds up after a while.

So it’s, it’s kinda like an inspiration from the Motorsports community for me has been we figure out how to do this. It’s not that we don’t think about the money, we think about how to make it happen. No, no. Yeah. And in my comment there was more at, at 1.2 million a kilo. You, you definitely want adult [00:52:00] supervision on this.

And, and the adults here are the, you know, astrophysicists that you have on the team and the, the lunar geologists and, and other, you know, scientists and extremely intelligent people. ’cause you don’t want the payload drops off the vehicles and then suddenly they’re long dead on arrival. Yeah. If the moon has long, you know, their, their lawn ornaments there for the next 30 years, we want them to be long ornaments after they’ve competed.

So, you know, what is great about this project, how it relates to what I believe and really appreciate about motor sports. There are a lot of what I call gulp. Moments. You know, you do your best to manage the risk around those moments. That’s all you can do. And then I’ve been asked again and again, what if it crashes Mary?

It’s like, okay, what’s it gonna,

Crew Chief Eric: what’s it gonna hit? That’s what I wanna know. Did you put up a tire

Executive Producer Tania: barrier that we didn’t know about? Hey, the last two [00:53:00] landers, one from Israel and one from India, they both crashed.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh well, yeah. The surface of the moon. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Uhhuh. So it’s, it’s not a matter of, you know, are you, you know, you trying to get around the boot at the Glen.

It really is. There’s a lot of golf moments. The point of what we’re trying to do, and we are doing is that we want to bring young people into the sport and we wanna bring young people into thinking big, figuring out and knowing that they can achieve their dreams. That’s what this is about, and bringing them into steam.

I like that. I like the addition of the, a very often engineers stereotypically are not known for being very creative people, but at the same time, I’ve met a lot of engineers that have that creative side to them. And, and you often unfortunately, get it beat out of you depending on the industries you work in, which is unfortunate because the creativity is very important for innovation and [00:54:00] advancement.

So, I mean, I think this is, again, I’ve said it like 18 times, I think this is great. It’s very exciting. You wanna know some big news? I’m only telling you guys

Crew Chief Eric: all ears. Sorry. We’re all ears. I mean, I don’t know what’s bigger than the moon at this point, but Good. Go, go ahead. Shock me please. Mary’s going too.

She’s, she’s dropping the green flag. She’s the, she’s the only corner worker on the moon. I’ll do

Executive Producer Tania: that and then I’ll go to sleep. While we are, we’re going through the march to launch, we are doing lots of things with young people to bring them into both Moon Mark and Motorsport. So one of the things that we’ve just recently developed, and I’m extremely excited about.

Is a partnership with

Mary & Marianne: NHRA National Hot Rod Association,

Crew Chief Eric: the drag racers, we’re gonna shoot these

Executive Producer Tania: [00:55:00] things

Mary & Marianne: straight off

Executive Producer Tania: the moon, neath the space

Crew Chief Eric: top fuel lunar landers. It’s gonna be amazing. Four second quarter mile on the moon.

Executive Producer Tania: I’m not a drag racer, but I, I really like this, uh, organization, which is the largest sanctioning body racing body in the country, and we’re incredibly blessed to be partnering with them.

In addition to that, we are partnering with. Los Angeles County program called Delete the Divide. And, okay, delete the Divide is a way to reach young people who do not have internet access. They don’t have computers or laptops or phones or any of that. And there are currently about 500,000 of them. And so we’re doing two events with both of the groups, and one of them is on July 30th, [00:56:00] uh, at pom, and the other one is their national Championship on November 12th.

What we are gonna do with Delete the Divide and Moon Mark is there to bring space and race together and give kids the experience of understanding the interdisciplinary offering of both of these industries in both of these beautiful, beautiful ecosystems. So we’re really excited about that.

Mary & Marianne: And, and to touch on what you said Tanya, about, you know, adding the a and and engineers, you know, some kids may not have it in them to be engineers, and I think it’s really important what we’ve discussed with our partnership with the NHRA and and delete the divide is that these different industries have people that all have teams around them, of other people.

And they may not all be scientists, they may not all be engineers, but each person plays a very key role. You know, it’s not one person that sends a rocket to space. It’s not one person that drives a car. You know, they have these entire teams around them that each play their [00:57:00] role. And so inspiring kids to understand that they could fit into any aspect of these things if they really want to.

Uh, is something that, you know, we’ve talked about over and over again. And, and it’s, it’s something that we hold close to us.

Crew Chief Eric: And it goes back to what we talked about earlier, not just the intersection between aerospace and automobiles. It’s all the different branches of science that are involved just in building a vehicle.

People look at a vehicle and they go, oh, it’s a bucket of nuts and bolts and some sheet metal, but it’s chemistry, it’s physics, math, it’s thermodynamics, it’s electronics, it’s mathematics, it’s aerodynamics. It’s all sorts of things. There’s, it’s not just a toaster. You know, I, I hate it when people think cars are just appliances because they’re not, they’re beautiful pieces of engineering.

Sometimes, you know, handcrafted, you know, they came out of someone’s dream or maybe they were designed by a computer, like the most recent McLaren that we’ve seen, the optimal design or whatever it might be. But there’s a lot of thought, a lot of patients, and a lot of. To Mary’s point, trial and error [00:58:00] that goes into that, but a ton of science.

Sure. And a ton of dedication. No car, no vehicle, whether it be these lunar landers or these lunar racers rather, or, or the cars that you drive on the street. You know, even that base model rental car, there’s teams of people involved. It’s not designed in a vacuum and it’s just incredible what goes into what we take for granted every day.

What I also see from this is kind of, you know, fantasizing a little bit again about what the future looks like. I mean, we’ve been spoonfed science fiction since the sixties, right? Since Mary mentioned Star Trek and you had Star Wars and the ideas of what the future would look like. And even in, in some video games where it’s like they can take liberties with what science is gonna be like.

As an example, and this is gonna be really current mass effect, super popular title. Probably one of the best stories of all time in the video game world has a whole section in it about landing on planet, but what the rover is like six by six. You know, all these different kinds of things and what the physics are like to drive that thing on a, on a alien planet.

Kind of [00:59:00] interesting. It, it all come together and if you think about it, you know. 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago, when somebody said, Hey, do you think we’re gonna have a watch that we can talk to, like on Dick Tracy? People are like, what are you talking about? That’s, that’s nonsense. I mean now even the pads on Star Trek, they called ’em, right?

Which are the little tablets that they would go around. We already have that. Those are iPads, right? All that technology, it’s just foreshadowing. And I think to Tanya’s point to everything that we’ve been talking about, this is the beginning of something big. And I like the fact that you guys are doing this with vehicles because I think even though it’s miniature, because of the cost, it’s eventually going to scale up.

And that’s where I was going with my example about, you know, like mass effect and some of these other things, because maybe one day it’ll be shuttle craft, just like in Star Trek, right? You never know.

Mary & Marianne: And I think too, it’s gonna grow with the kids, right? We get ’em in while they’re young and they have this small remote controled car.

We know we’re building a future workforce with those kids. So those ideas are just gonna get bigger. Those cars are gonna get bigger places are gonna be farther away.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. [01:00:00] Not to get on the soapbox. I mean, our society, our country as a whole, we need to push them or steam at younger and younger ages and particularly, you know, historically women, were the minority kind of in that grouping.

And we need to push even, you know, more women to that field and to realize that you too can be an engineer. And so it’s really critical if we, if we start ’em young and they, and they’re learning those skills or how to think differently and especially when they start out young, they’re not jaded. Yeah. And, and the creativity and imagination is so much different when you’re young versus when you’ve gone through college or whatever and you’re working a job.

Uh, life can tamp that out of you a bit. So harnessing that energy and that force. Is critical to all this innovation and advancement, so it’s great. Well, we had a lot of spirited discussion about whether to focus our attention on high school kids. Or [01:01:00] college kids.

Crew Chief Eric: I was wondering about that.

Executive Producer Tania: It was a, a very meaningful, not only discussion, but decision process.

And like you are saying, Tanya, we concluded that the, the creativity spark. An ability to reach the demographic that we wanted in order for them to be inspired, motivated, and achieved at that moment in their life is really in the high school versus college age. By the time you get to college, there’s a lot of other things going on, and high school was challenging enough, but we’ve proven out with our lunar race car design challenge.

Clearly, if teams of high school kids can design lunar worthy racers within four weeks and they estimated the cost would 30,000 bucks, that’s kind of indicative. And, and [01:02:00] Maryanne as and I as as bright as we are, we’re not the ones that determine that. Okay. Our space partners determined that, that, that they were viable.

So if you have that kind of backing of information and data and experience, that starts to really inform what you do going forward

Mary & Marianne: with this opportunity. Being for high school, you see a lot of kids when they’re going into college, right? Kind of like a demoralization if they don’t get into the college that they want or if they can’t excel in the, you know, in the subject that they are passionate about.

And so what this opportunity does, you know, getting them to the moon, giving it to high school students, it kind of propels them through that. And it’s like, all right, well, I mean, maybe I didn’t get this, you know, specific college scholarship, but I already sent something to the moon, so like, I’m not gonna let this hold me back from like pursuing something beyond that.

Plus

Executive Producer Tania: you probably would’ve lost a bunch of people in the sense that once you get into [01:03:00] college at a certain point. Everyone is compartmentalized in their major or whatnot, right? So you’ve got all the engineers over here and astrophysicists and this, that, and the other, and suddenly all the people that are gonna register for this program are gonna be, you know, PhD graduate students that are gonna spend two years and it’s gonna cost not 30,000, 300,000.

I’m sure it’s probably gonna work, but it would’ve been way more than needed in when the kids are still in high school. They’re not thinking about all that. No, no one is, oh, you’re the engineer, you’re the physicist, you’re the, everyone is just kind of the same. And so you probably have more people willing to put themselves out there.

Mary & Marianne: And that’s what we also found with the Lunar Race Car Design challenge. You know, we didn’t tell them who needed to be on their team. You know, we gave them the specifications. We said, this is what you need. It’d be good to have. And they were the ones that came in. They were like, okay, you’re good at science.

You can help us. You’re good at math, you can help us. Like you’re good at art. You can make videos, you can make designs, you can help us. Like, that was their doing and it [01:04:00] really worked amazing. You know, they had teams that really came together and created something incredible.

Executive Producer Tania: I do wanna mention our uh, lunar race provider partner, which is Lunar Outpost.

And they have done an amazing job of putting together our prototypes. And we’re all working with Frank Stinson on the design side for the bodies. And so by the time we get to the moon, number one, we’re gonna know that the young people are gonna be able to race these things. And number two, they’re gonna look pretty freaking awesome.

They’re gonna look like race cars. That’s awesome. Got some stickers on them, some stickers that don’t melt or freeze on the

Crew Chief Eric: moon. I’m gonna, I’m gonna leave the audience with some food for thought. So on the moon, is there a design that cheats the wind? And I’ll let, I’ll let Stefon [01:05:00] answer that question on his own time, right?

So you gotta think about that for a minute.

Executive Producer Tania: Thank you, listeners for staying tuned in with us. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. You wanna learn more about Mary? You can always find her on LinkedIn, but if you’re interested in racing on the moon with Mary. Be sure to check out www moon space or follow their progress via Instagram at moon mark space and be sure to reach out to Maryanne for her updates and additional details on the program.

So thank you both again.

Crew Chief Eric: Absolutely. This has been pretty epic. I, I don’t think we’ve had any discussion like this of any kind before. I think this is gonna be a pretty eye-opening experience for a lot of people. And I, and I love the crossover here between the education side of this, the motor sports side, the competitive side, aerospace engineering, all the things we talked about.

I cannot applaud you guys enough for the initiative that you’ve taken on. This is above and beyond to infinity and beyond, I suppose, to, I salute you both and I wish you all the best of luck and I cannot thank you [01:06:00] guys enough, Maryanne, Maryanne, for coming on break Fix and talking with us and telling your story.

Executive Producer Tania: Tanya and Eric, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time this evening, Maryanne. Thank you as always. Um, no, appreciate your time, both of yours. Let’s, uh, that was fun. Let’s go get on track.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, absolutely. Watkins Glen, October. I’ll see you there.

Mary & Marianne: Okay,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s right. Listeners. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our Patreon for a follow on pit stop mini episode. 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.

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.gt motorsports.org.

You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Tour Motorsports. Also, if you want to [01:07:00] 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@gtmotorsports.org. We’d love to hear from you.

Consider signing up for Patreon today at www.patreon.com/gt motorsports. And remember, without fans, supporters, and members like [01:08:00] 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.

00:00:00 Meet Mary Hag7: From Army Soldier to CEO
00:01:50 Mary’s Motorsport Journey
00:04:17 Our Vet Success and Triumph Games
00:06:42 Racing Stories and Memorable Moments
00:14:13 The Epic Cross-Country Drive
00:20:29 Moon Mark: Racing to the Moon
00:28:31 The Intersection of Motorsport and Aerospace
00:31:17 A Serendipitous Encounter at Thunder Hill
00:33:21 Racing on the Moon: The Vision
00:34:44 Lunar Race Car Design Challenge
00:38:16 Challenges and Logistics of Moon Racing
00:41:03 The Future of Space and Motorsports
00:53:16 Inspiring the Next Generation
00:54:29 Exciting Partnerships and Initiatives
01:05:03 Final Thoughts and Farewell

Learn More

To learn more about Mary you can always find her on LinkedIn, but if you’re interested in racing on the moon with Mary, be sure to check out www.moonmark.space or follow their progress via IG @moonmark.space; and be sure to reach out to Marianne for for updates and additional details on the program.

🌕 Moon Mark: Racing Beyond Earth

Moon Mark began with a simple question: “What if high school students could race on the moon?” Inspired by a robotics competition and her own motorsports experience, Mary envisioned a STEM initiative that would empower teens to design, build, and race lunar vehicles.

Despite skepticism from industry insiders – who claimed it would take hundreds of millions and decades – Mary persisted. With support from motorsports legends like Ross Bentley and Scott Elkins (who’s designing the lunar track), and design input from Frank Stephenson (McLaren, Ferrari, Mini), Moon Mark took shape.

The program launched a global Lunar Race Car Design Challenge, attracting 35 teams from 11 countries. Six finalists emerged, and two designs – one from Argentina, one from China- were deemed lunar viable by aerospace engineers. The winning teams earned donations for their chosen charities and a place in Moon Mark’s history.

🧠 STEAM Over STEM

Moon Mark isn’t just about science and engineering – it’s about creativity. By embracing STEAM (adding “Arts” to STEM), the program invites students of all backgrounds to contribute. Whether designing bodywork, crafting videos, or solving technical challenges, participants learn that innovation thrives at the intersection of disciplines.

As Marianne put it, “It’s not one person that sends a rocket to space. It’s not one person that drives a car. They have entire teams around them.” Moon Mark reflects that ethos, building a future workforce that’s collaborative, imaginative, and bold.

🌍 Earthly Partnerships, Galactic Goals

Moon Mark’s reach extends beyond the moon. Partnerships with NHRA and LA County’s Delete the Divide initiative aim to bring space and race to underserved communities. By offering hands-on experiences and mentorship, Moon Mark is helping close the digital divide and inspire the next generation of explorers.

Mary’s journey – from Jeep antics in Korea to racing on the moon – is a testament to what happens when passion meets purpose. Motorsports gave her the tools, the community, and the confidence to dream big. Now, she’s giving that gift to students around the world. As Eric said, “This is above and beyond – to infinity and beyond, I suppose.” And with Moon Mark, that’s not just a catchphrase. It’s a trajectory.

There’s more to this story…

We go behind the scenes with Mary & Marianne from Moon Mark, talk about their favorite cars and what they would love to turn into space junk!

Some stories are just too good for the main episode… Check out this Behind the Scenes Pit Stop Minisode! Available exclusively on our Patreon.

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SHOUTOUTS to GTM members for inspiring this episode with their articles:

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Bonus Content

Potassium, Magnesium, and the Power of Real Food

🧪 Mythbusting: Urine Color and Beverage Temperature

Beyond Water: What Should You Actually Drink?

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Showcase: Lamborghini

Automotive, EV & Car-Adjacent News

Domestics

EVs & Concepts

Formula One

Japanese & JDM

Lost & Found

Around the World … in a Model-T

Lower Saxony

BRABUS! is back w/800hp GLE

Lowered Expectations

Time to leave the Waffle House!

Motorsports

Mountain View

Lamborghini JUMPACAN!

Rich People Thangs!

Tesla

VAG & Porsche

Lambo Commercial: “Close to the Road”

Audi’s Road to DAKAR!

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Local News

Would you like fries with that?

There's more to this story!

Other episodes that aired this month…

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The Motor That Got Away

Legacy, Community, and the Porsche Brotherhood

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Sim Racing Meets STEM: A Curriculum That Drives Engagement

Editors Note: 2023 Update!

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The Panel’s Picks: ’90s Icons and Underdogs

Pontiac Firebird Trans Am WS6

GMC Typhoon / Syclone

Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4 / Dodge Stealth

Toyota Soarer / Lexus SC300/400

Nissan 240SX

Ford Mustang Cobra (’93 SVT or ’99 IRS model)

Honda Prelude SH / Integra Type R

Nissan Skyline R32/R33

The Verdict? Still Undecided…

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GTMSpreading Motorsports Enthusiasm - since 2014

GTMSpreading Motorsports Enthusiasm - since 2014

GTMSpreading Motorsports Enthusiasm - since 2014