226 - So Many Stories... (Carson Christel)

Oh

Hi, I'm Scott and I'm Seth

And I'm Carson and we are track walking

Tonight

He's been on my list to have on the podcast for probably three years. No joke and

One of my longtime

grid life buddies

Gives good hugs

Just to all around good guy

Does make me blush

Well, I'm I was trying to say I was gonna say used to drive VW's. I mean you still do

But you used to drive on track

Yes, I was one of those mad lads. Yeah

Tonight we have Carson crystal on the podcast. How are you Carson?

I'm good. Thanks for having me guys. This is awesome. Yeah

So I guess I want to start when

You and I first and I don't actually remember like our first actual meeting I

remember

starting to get

tighter because

your then wife was

kind of wanting to do beginner stuff and

You and I were talking about how the car was trying to kill her

The G yeah, G35 the G35 the Volkswagen never killed anybody. No

Yeah, so there's a sedan

G35 automatic transmission and it like to downshift in new and creative ways

It like to shift in every way you didn't want it to

What do you remember like our first meeting because I genuinely it had to have been on grid at some point I

Mean it actually it was probably in tech

If anything because back then I was running tech for grid life. Yeah

Yeah, how do I been up and I just saw I'm I'm assuming and I'm surmising here

But I'm sure I said well, who's this devilishly handsome man coming up in this awesome little Miata

It got there little aren't they?

But yeah, then I remember

I

tracked a picnic at

Blackhawk, I think that's I think that's when we we really kind of

Vibed in clothes. Hey, we're friends. Yeah, okay, we're gonna do the thing now

You have a car and I have a car and we should be best friends

Everything's great. Oh was that all that was when the I

Don't remember if that was the same weekend or like the year after but that's when my exhaust made a fold

separated

melted everything

And Carson had I remember

Looking over at you guys and you had it up on Jack stands

Just trying to figure out how to drive it home because you guys were nuts

You drove that thing everywhere. I have so much respect for you for that

Seth Carson is the one

who

We were trying to figure it out because the motor mount had melted and the oil pan was sitting on the steering rack and

Carson had a spare rubber

Spring seat

That we cut in two places to put on top of the rack

So that it would like center itself and not like just want to squish out all the time

Mm-hmm. That is how we drove home

What

What makes a man bring in spare rubber spring seat to the track?

Well, I mean it all go back to the beginning of this conversation and Scott had mentioned

I'm I used to drive a Volkswagen on the racetrack. So you need to bring

literally

Everything to make sure that when it breaks, you're good to go

Yeah, Volkswagen guys are the most thoroughly prepared guys at the track is what you're saying. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I

Was probably one of the few

Very prepared but that's you know, I read my own race shop building Volkswagen's and Audis

So now I just I kind of had seen every failure there was under the Sun and back then when I was

Scraping together just to get my car to the track. I the last thing I want it was to lose track time. So I just literally brought everything

Okay, I want to know if it's a regional thing or if it's like how it's actually pronounced

But I've heard people say Audi versus Audi

Like is there a correct way

Do we know this is Audi Audi, okay

It's probably partway between because it's a German thing. So it's that subtle pronunciation that you can't even hear

Yeah, that's about it. And of course now I'm gonna get crucified for you know saying it wrong to somebody

No, because like I'm remembering the Fortners back then we're driving in the UD and

Set that whole thing

The the Scottish like accent all of a sudden like the

Felt like what that was

So how did you start making poor track decisions?

Like because you've the the car I know you for it's kind of it's a panda. It's a like a black-and-white

GTI or police car

Bluesmobile

That's got kind of all the bells and whistles and stuff like that

How how did you find your way to that?

I've

Back in high school one of my buddies bought a mark for GTI and he took me out for a spin bone stock

But you know at the time I think I had a 94 Honda Accord LX wagon still the goaded

But I went for a ride in that GTI and it just I don't know there was something about it

It bit me and then from that point on I was just obsessed with Volkswagen's so I ended up buying

my 06 GTI in 2008 and it was freaking off to the races man was

Mark 5.com the old forums and BW Vortex and just talking to people and it's like oh, you know what that

Think I want to kind of take this to the racetrack and it was

I

Remember by Volkswagen magazines then yeah, yeah

Yeah, I remember it was one hell of a community

Vortex was it wasn't quite nasiak like it wasn't quite nasiak for the VW

But it wasn't totally dissimilar like sifting through information in that age was difficult

Well, I don't know it just the bug bit me and I decided to start developing the chassis

I was already a career heavy diesel mechanic. So I knew how to turn a wrench and I

Just I wanted to see how far I could take the chassis and I ended up

I guess I was one of the first people to really truly go ham on that platform and that chassis and I just

Started throwing that everything including the kitchen sink at it and was doing things that no one else was doing swapping

You know Audi TT RS steering rack and front-end and spindles and Volkswagen Tiguan rear spindles on it

Just to get an extra 40 millimeters 20 mil per side

So

Or VW is kind of like Legos like Honda's oh, yeah

Well that generation was you know, I it it still is to a degree

But but back then, you know the the Tiguan's and Audis and then

TT's and golf ours and golf's they all the parts were almost

Completely interchangeable. It was pretty wild, but I didn't know that and no one else knew that I kind of found it out as I was going I

Do remember again as this was back in the the nonsense

Form days, but I do remember like it becoming a thing where you could buy

Bugatti wheels and put them on your VW because it was the same bolt pattern

It's five by one twelve. Yeah

And of course people would for like two or three grand per wheel

Just to say that they did it. There was a lot of reps. There was a lot of reps out there

What um and during that time that's like you just you knew

Tracking to be something that like you could do

I

Mean I I didn't I knew that I wanted to do it

I didn't come from a racing background or family at the closest thing to racing

I'd ever experienced was my mom used to take me to the demolition derby when I was a real little kid

Oh, yeah, and I was just fascinated and then you know, I remember being ten years old

Cheering on rusty Wallace and NASCAR and my mom and my dad looking at me like where the hell did this come from?

What what was it when you were like, I mean demolition I totally get as a kid like yes, that will be entertaining as hell

Watching watching NASCAR go around a circle. Sorry an oval or a tri oval. That's a different thing

What what was it about watching that on TV that was like exciting?

Nothing tangible nothing that I can put my finger on say that right there was the reason I got into this

It's just I don't know it it spoke to me like nothing else up until that point in my life had and

The bug never went away. I just I became obsessed with it. I'm

still doing it

Almost 20 years later. Yeah, so from from a love of watching cars go and try ovals

Is that what led you down a path of being a diesel mechanic? What's the connection there? Oh?

God, no that was completely unrelated

That was kind of you know, I dropped out of college. I tried going to COD

I went I was at Eastern, Illinois for a while and

I came back and I was just kind of trying to find my way and and family friends said hey, you know

I a buddy of mine owns a heavy diesel shop and

They're looking for a mechanic

We know that you you know build dirt bikes and mini bikes and go karts and you fix small engines and stuff

And you should go give this a shot and they

they

They gave me a chance and I took to it like a

I don't know

Something that takes to something really well magnets

Magnet

What so you mentioned dirt bikes? So we got to talk about dirt bikes because you're like anybody who had dirt bikes as a kid

Getting into cars makes sense

So what's oh for sure? What's dirt bikes go karts?

What what happened in your youth that corrupted you because it's more than watching rusty walls or on circles dirt bikes and go

Karts are huge corrupting influence. Oh, yeah

That was my stepdad and I

We were out just kind of you know driving around the neighborhood one day and there was I don't know if you've ever heard of a rupt

Yeah, but it's like oh, you know. Oh sweet. Okay, so there was a rupt chassis sitting on the side of the road

and that was probably I don't know eight years old and

He was like, oh, hey, that would be a really cool fun project for us

And I had no idea what he was talking about

I just saw this cool like old full suspension drum brake little mini bike looking thing

And he grabbed it and he brought it home through in the back of the truck

We brought it home and then a couple days later a neighbor was throwing out a snowblower

And so we're there's a motor we took a motor and he started teaching me how to do that and man

I used to just smash that thing around the frickin neighborhood. I went through so many centrifugal clutches

Yep

Did you guys so probably that yeah, did you guys live out in the country or like in a neighborhood?

Oh god, no god. No, we were like suburban Chicago. There's

It is definitely not the country a lot of angry looks from neighbors down the street

I bet so you just like right around the streets with these

Yeah, right around the streets in the backyard, you know the the neighbors to the left and right of my my mom's house where I grew up

They were really really cool

And they they didn't care and there's access between all three yards. So we they used to make little mini bike

Courses and tracks in the backyard between all three neighbors

But then when I outgrew that it it's naturally kind of snuck out onto the street. I was like, how fast could I go?

as one does

As one does and did you like at the time? Did you enjoy riding or working on them more?

both both

Both it was 5050. I fell in love with both aspects

It's just you know turning a wrench and and taking something that has zero value and all of a sudden

It's the most fun. You've ever had in your entire life was a very profound experience for me and it definitely

Kind of shaped the way my life went

That's interesting. So the experience of like

Had you bought it like maybe not even new but like really nice. It wouldn't have been the same experience

No, not at all. Well, I wouldn't have gotten

You know, I that was always into Legos and stuff. So I like building I like figuring stuff out puzzle solving

I hate puzzles, but I like puzzle solving

and so like that that was a

That that was a defining moment that I was able to create something myself

I was able to build something with guidance from my stepdad. I didn't know what I was doing. Yeah

That's cool

Where'd that what happened to that much like?

We sold it

Probably two three years later

And I ended up getting like another was like a YZ

90

Or something is just a little dirt bike and that's that's about as far as I ever got with the dirt bikes

Yeah, just a little dirt bike right Seth

YZ 90 is a little dirt bike. Yes

No, it's it's a perfect dirt bike for an 11-year-old

That world of two strokes and two strokes in my experience once you get used to a two stroke coming on the pipe

The next illness is turbochargers

Yeah, I don't think you're wrong

It always blew my mind like I I don't think I I'd never knew this because I

Wasn't like raised or really interested in bikes for most of my life until like of course like cruising around

Orlando at nighttime like a hooligan with your buddies like I happened upon some turbocharged

Crotch rockets, of course, but like the notion that you could put it on a turbo on a bike

Seemed dumb to me like I'm like, why would they do that? They've got plenty of power

It doesn't seem dumb it is dumb, but we do a lot of dumb things

It's it's just it's a lot of power for not having anything around you, it's all I'm saying

And

It's interesting though because that's where my motorcycles to wheel other than BMX and mountain bike

you know, that's where

That's where the motorcycles ended and very shortly after that. I bought my first truck my first car

Which is an old CJ five

cheap Wrangler and

With like the tube frame seats with canvas stretched across them

It's not even like actual seats and the thing and I just I never went back to bikes

Is it once I had a car once I knew what that was like? It was it was over. It was I just went way down that rabbit hole

hmm

So how did you turn into a car guy and not a Jeep guy?

Well

The the Jeep got totaled not by me

And then I my stepdad replaced it with a

1987 Chevy Cavalier that was rust-free

And it already had weight savings in the form of rust

Yeah

So I didn't really get a whole lot of time with the Jeep and I knew I liked going fast more than I liked going over things

And the Cavalier helped show you that did it

It was faster than the Jeep oh

My god, there's such pieces of crap

Oh

It was terrible

I hated and loved that car at the same time

I put upgraded the six by nine speakers in the rear deck and was just thought it was the greatest thing ever

Yeah, as as you do six by nines were like

the best

It was amazing

I couldn't believe the sound that came out of that left the front speakers completely alone because they were like a little

Four inch in the dash

Yep

bouncing off the windshield but those six by nines in the back man

They found it. Yeah, and you could get the the four ways if you're really wild and crazy

I went three way. Yeah, you know, but that was 16 17 years old. So I had budget mine

I think my really lame car that I kind of adored and I I don't think about anymore

But when it comes up, I I'm like, yeah, that was kind of fun was a Dodge shadow

V6 five-speed. Oh

Really, it's not the Peter cruiser. Yeah, this was before the PT cruiser, right?

But this this car it was such a hunk of crap

It was a two-door and it had somebody had to like wired in

Like speakers in their own boxes and just like put them on the parcel shelf in the back

Yeah, so you could like

Boxes you could get yeah

and

It there may be a hundred and forty horsepower, maybe

But it was a five-speed and I set some some records going to and from college in that car

And I also got more power than the Cavalier

It was like this bright turquoise with purple accents. Oh, that was the one. Yeah, it was bad about that car

We all know it was crap

Had some good time so it was either the shadow or the Beretta at that time. Yeah, like it's so cool

You know what though? It proves a good point though. You don't need something crazy to

Really get into this. I mean look at Scott and I had I had an 87 Chevy Cavalier. There was a piece of crap

He had this freaking piece of crap Dodge, which is you could put any model name in there and it's covered. Yeah

exactly

Yeah, and it's

Yeah, it almost seems like modern cars

Even the basic ones like even a basic cheap Civic is

Like a very good car compared to a lot that you could buy 20 years ago

Like there are yeah, the day at the day at $10,000 new cars is long gone though. So they better be decent

Yeah, well done. Yeah, I mean the cheapest one is what the Mitsubishi Mirage?

The four door. I'll take your word for it. It's a four door thing. It's got to have like 145 width

tires

It can barely get out of its own way, but like I bet you the interior was way nicer than anything we had back then

So

So you went from crawling over thing how much how much off-roading did you do in the Jeep?

No, okay zero, but so ever okay, that's fair like my grandpa's farm

Maybe you know around it because he had like 20 acres in Plano

And it actually that was his plow truck that I ended up buying from him

And so that was I never even actually got to drive it. It got totaled before I had my license

What happened?

Who did it long story? Okay, not me

Family or friend I

Will say this much if

So on those Jeep Wranglers the hood latches are the little spring clips on the two sides

And if you don't latch those down, they like to flip open it really inconvenient times

It do be like that and it was family

Well shit, yeah

so the

Was it what card you say the firebird?

No me no no what car?

Not the

Cavalier Cavalier that was it. I'm like bread. Oh god. We talked about too much

How the hell do we go from Cavalier to firebird man? That's a huge jump

May have been that my friend had a really shitty

automatic

V6 version that was very very everybody had that friend my my buddy. We had the Camaro the Iraq Camaro from back then

Yep, I remember drag racing my friend in a newer neon and

It depended but it's an automatic neon too. That's how bad it was and the neon could hold its own like

It was that bad

For good time that wasn't even a skittle like an SRT that was just a neon. Yes. I love neon

Those will always have a place in my heart

Man, I got a hard spot for those SRT fours. Oh, yeah, I've talked about those on here. That was that was my

my introductory thought in performance driving was

Taking the neon SRT four on the one lap of America which never happened

but it was supposed to and that

that I

Claim as ultimately kind of getting me into track driving

They were okay, they were so good from factory

But so is the PT Cruiser GT so you know, oh my god, don't even start with that. It's the same thing

It's the same thing up front. Just saying it's just you were just a different ahead of the CUV craze

It was really where Scott was. Yeah, the PT Cruiser was the first

soft utility vehicle and that was the PT Cruiser GT. Yes turbo one. Yes. Yeah

Yeah, so it sucks a little less it does and

Yeah, my made decent power and had

Too much suspension on it probably and I adored that car I

Had the opportunity to buy it back a few years back and it's a good thing. I didn't but like

Sometimes I think about that choice

So what's a what came?

after

That car then. Oh my god a myriad of cars. I think I went through about

Ten before I finally landed on the GTI. Were you were you doing diesel mechanic King at the same time?

No, that was so the Cavalier was like my my high school and then

Directly preceding the Cavalier would have been the 94 cord Alex wagon

And then right after that was a Mitsubishi Lancer OZ rally edition, which I

Kind of did some stupid stuff with

And ended up spending way too much money and time on that thing

And what then I had a Pontiac Grand Prix

There's I I lose track of all the cars after that feel like everybody either had or news

Tightly knew somebody who had a Grand Prix

The Grand Prix is like one of those cars that no one really talks about but everybody had or remembers it. Yes

They were everywhere like I I strangely I

See a couple of them around on a fairly regular basis

Which seems crazy to me in Michigan, but like they're the supercharge like

GTP yeah, we had a GTP. Yeah fast

People like those which was weird

And my neighbor had a Bonneville G XP, which was the supercharged bigger brother of the Grand Prix

And I remember that thing I just every time he took that thing

I put exhaust on it that probably had a little bit of an influence on me as well had the extra inlets on the front

I mean that's

It's really I mean I I remember the 90s magazines with the hoods and bumpers you could buy

More inlets was better

Remember that clearly

so

So when you well, where did go carts come in you were building and

Yeah, I mean nothing like

It was mostly just like backyard go carton and and ripping around neighborhoods and just kind of being menaces with my friends. I

Mean that seems appropriate

Was this was this something that you built to or was this something you kind of bought running?

No, I you know never came for money family never had money. I never really had money

It's still don't have money so everything was always you know

Friend of a friend was getting rid of a go-kart frame or you know driving around the neighborhood

You see a go-kart frame and you and your buddy go and just you know tie a rope around ask the people

Hey, are you guys getting rid of this tie a rope around it drag it back to the house find a

Snowblower or lawnmower something with a motor on it and swap it on there

Just hooligans, you know, yeah, so what happened with college just didn't take

So I had a

Full ride to

University of Iowa for wrestling and I had a partial ride to eastern Illinois for lacrosse and I had been wrestling

for a very long time and I was getting a little burned out on it and I really really really liked across so I figured you know

Hey, let me I'm gonna go to eastern Illinois take advantage of this lacrosse thing and when I got there

And I don't want to speak ill of any, you know

Educational institutions out there, but the lacrosse team was a bit of a joke

It was not what I was expecting it to be and when I figured that out my ambition and desire to really push through college

Kind of just fell apart

Yeah

Like the whole reason I was there, you know, yes education, but you know, I was I was an athlete

I'm a competitor at heart and and when that just didn't pan out and didn't

Wasn't what I was expecting it to be the wind got taken out of my sails

And lacrosse at the time lacrosse is a pretty small

Sport across the United States

Big on the East Coast

very very small footprint in the Midwest and on the West Coast and I actually

My high school didn't have a lacrosse team. I went to Glenbart East and Lombard and I ended up

Connecting with somebody from Glenbart West, which is the next town over is high school

And and they wanted to start a lacrosse team. So I actually co-founded the Glenbart West lacrosse team

My sophomore year of high school and that's what really kind of put me down that path. Geez

Yeah, I I played a little bit of rugby in

High school, which was would have been you know around that same time and those two sports

Were not very well known

By and large. No, but that's a real man's sport rugby. You guys don't mess around

I mean, I didn't stay in it very long, but yeah, it's

Yeah, this is a real vibe. I've seen a lot more broken bones up close

playing in rugby choking on my rum

And I have other places

so

you find

kind of a landing pad in diesel

Mechanicking and we're talking like

18-wheeler sized stuff

cats, you know Peterbilt freight liner Kenworth

All all the big stuff and you know, I

They kind of took me under their wing taught me a few things and it was all over from there

I mean, I don't know I think I got

The snap-on guy loved me. I think I was I just paid that off maybe three years ago

That was a hundred and sixty thousand dollars in tools and toolboxes. How do they get away with that? I I'm sorry

I have regularly think about this nap-on guy and like how much I I get the lifetime warranty and

Like I get especially if you're in the trade how big of a deal that is

But it seems

absurd to me the amount that they charge for any of their products

Like how does this it's convenience? I mean

So I can tell you right now because I was a victim of it and that is and I say that the payment plan is in the end

It's just so they bring financing to you

Yeah

It's a week you can do a weekly or monthly payment and at the time, you know

What's as a heavy diesel mechanic or is any mechanic, you know, what's a hundred bucks a week yet?

Whatever, you know, I got a I need tools. I need to do my job

I don't want to have to go to you know, whatever name home depot ace hardware to get my tools because they're not gonna last

That's just consumer-grade stuff and when the snap-on guy comes to you and says, oh sure

Here's a twenty thousand dollar line of credit a hundred bucks a week

You can buy whatever the hell you want and if you break it, I'll be here next week and I'll fix it for you

So is that like a 30 year mortgage with

What's the payment like however long you're in the industry for it's that's how long you're gonna be

Geez

I mean in his defense those snap-on trucks are cool. They are I don't know if you you've been on one

Oh, yeah, yeah, you see my dad's dealership. I bought a little like pocket knife from the guy there

Yeah, you weren't you weren't old enough to really like know you could buy stuff and look around and be like

But I could buy stuff

That's a big kid toy store that comes to you and the things that they sell you help you

Yeah, it's it's true

It's true. Unfortunately, yeah

What um, what did you enjoy about doing that job besides the the money?

Um, I mean, it's not like I made a ton of money doing it. I didn't do too bad for myself, but

I it goes back to like even when I was a kid Legos problem-solving puzzle solving

It's taking something that's broken and fixing it and saying I did that

And then the person that you fixed it for going holy crap. Thank you so much for doing that

so it's

it's a lot of

It helps with the self-worth. It really gives you a sense of pride and accomplishment that very few things out there do

Bring in something like bringing something that was broken to you and

Either fixing it giving a new life or something like that

yep

And you don't and I just had a knack for it

So it was very natural to me turning a wrench fixing cars fixing trucks

It's a bolt is a bolt a wrench is a wrench

It doesn't matter if it's you know on a train or if it's on a dirt bike. It's the same principles across the board

It's just bigger and smaller. Well, I was about to say I think it it feels cooler because it's so much bigger

Like I mean when I for sure when I see the in the front like clams come off of those things. It's like

That's pretty cool and the first time you see a tractor

So like take a Kenworth so you got you know your front axle and then dual axles

You got oh eight tires in the back the first time you see one of those do a wheelie is really a

Like holy what I don't know if I can swear here, but holy shit

Seen that one of those do a wheelie like intentionally. Oh, yeah

No, that was we had a couple of customers that come through our shop that you know bigger turbos these big cat C

15s with twin turbos on them and these guys and

Put bigger injectors in it bigger fuel pumps bigger turbos and just turn these things up to 11

I've seen tweak chassis's I've seen trucks do wheelies

They're just they're big kids who used to do street shenanigans and they got a job

Hauling and they just started tweaking their trucks then

And it's they use the guise of efficiency if I have more power I need less I need to use less of it. It's true

Kind of it's kind of true

I'd like

It's a guys it's

Not quite

Reality, but I mean that we all tell ourselves stuff to get through what we want to do. Yeah, I got to justify it

Somehow what's it's always the asterisk. It's more efficient as long as you keep your foot out of it

Even like going back to the GTI's

Like do it a stage one two on any of those cars

You know you do a stage one two and you're like, oh man

I can I can actually get better fuel mileage now

But you get worse few mileage because you are more inclined to get deeper in the throttle. Yeah

Yeah, it sounds like the snap-on guy all over again

How deep do you want to go

That's become my own worst enemy

So so you landed with this GTI what's

How did you get on track with it the first time?

Started off a friend of mine was a member at Autobahn Country Club and that was the first track event

I ever did was at Autobahn Country Club. It's just a member day and I went out there and

drove for

Maybe six hours just beat the ever-living crash smoke the brakes burned every fluid and the thing just I mean

Basically destroyed my car in one single day and I went well

That can't happen. I got obviously I have to fix all this stuff fixer

Yeah

And then yeah just ended up doing some HPD days

Eventually ended up running doing some stuff with SCCA

What years are we talking here

2009

2010 11

cheese, okay

and then I

NASA or SCCA kind of and then again not talking bad about any of the organizations out there because the more

Organizations we have at this point the better we got to keep this sport alive, but I

kind of lost the allure of doing time trials with the SCCA and

Ended up going over to NASA and I did one season in the GTS series

okay, and

Was very very very much outgunned

It kind of took the wind out of my sails and that would have been

2013-14

What what was the main competition? Are we talking like SCIs and evos?

No GTS German touring series, so it's all German cars

Okay, so a lot of Audis a lot of BMWs that the be it was basically the BMW group. Yeah

You know a lot of 330s and 328s

But they you know everybody had more money than me

Yes

If you if you had had more money, could you have made your Volkswagen competitive?

Well, I mean I ended up making it fairly competitive until I eventually made my way to grid life

And and then at that point it was like then it was the driver. That was the problem

Yeah, we all find that out at some point I think if we if we keep seeking out competition

We eventually find I actually

Yeah

Going back maybe 20

2018-2019 running with grid life. I remember going home and talking to my wife at the time and being like

Man, I really suck. I'm slow. I'm not that good of a driver. My car sucks. I suck everything sucks

I'm really this is this is freaking brutal and

She wanted to kind of get into it, too

This is coming around to the time when you and I really started becoming friends over in 2017. Maybe and I

Was like, well, you know, I'm just there's a it was GPS lap times was doing an event at

Gingerman and I just kind of needed a break. I was really getting down on myself and I

Will never forget showing up to that day

I went out for my first session at gingerman with GPS lap times and just blew the doors off of everything around me and

Went, oh, maybe maybe I don't suck. Maybe my car doesn't suck. Maybe the competition is just that good

In a different organization context is important

When you got 9-11 GT3 drivers coming up to you after a session when you're in a 2006 Volkswagen GTI

Going what the do you have done to that thing?

Yeah, cuz it's all it's always the car, right? It's never like wow, you're a good driver. It's like it's never the driver

No, it's like man. Do you have some more power under there? What's what's going on?

Now how big a tires you run and what suspension you got is that you must have at least like 200 more horsepower than me

Yeah, Becky Becky still gets that occasionally

whenever we go run with HPD organizations and her car and like

You know with there's a there's a yep in mooncake

There's a there's a Cayman. I have it specifically in mind that is

Is quicker reliably than she is

but not through every corner and

and

She always notes that she's like, you know, I gave him a point. I then he held me up at this corner

You know and to that effect so I am forever and eternally grateful to Becky

My dad since I started racing since I started driving on the track performance driving

I remember this. Yeah, he has

Since day one he has told me I am absolutely nuts. I have a death wish. This is ridiculous that I do this

It's absolutely absurd. He never came to a single event over

13 years I tried to get him to come out to event

he just absolutely refused because he kept telling me that I'm he doesn't want to watch me kill myself and

He finally came out to Autobahn Country Club. Is that two years ago? I want to say and

I yeah, yeah, two or three years ago

And I went up to Becky and I was like, hey, you know, I trust you

This is my dad's first time ever coming out to event and I have to put him in a car

He's getting older. So the that window is rapidly closing

And I threw him in the car with Becky and it's funny to hear you talk about her going up against Porsches and stuff

because he comes back

Into the pit lane and he gets out of the car and he's

Very very clearly slightly disoriented and a little shook it up

And he looks at me and he goes cars. I

Don't know

What what changed his mind like after going that long I

Want to I want to say that I

Swayed him to the the side of good and and got him to come around

But I think it was the fact that I wasn't driving anymore

Hmm

Okay

Yeah, it wasn't me putting myself at risk. It was me putting him in a seat and I'll put him at risk

Right, which has a dad. That's fine. That's yeah. Oh, yeah adult choice

So how so when you started dabbling with grid life in

Competition and stuff. How how long did that last for you?

That would have been

Late 2015 was half way it would whatever the first year of

No, no, no, that wasn't road Atlanta. That was the next year one of my friends Shawn camsot

Mad lad with a mark six golf bar at the time

Is 2015? Yeah, he came up to me and he goes. Hey man, cuz I'd I'd stopped racing after NASA

I went I took maybe two three years off because I just kind of lost

The ambition for it and my buddy Shawn came up to me and he goes, hey man, have you ever heard of this thing called grid life?

I was like nah, and he goes well, you got to come they do this thing called Midwest festival. It's a bit

It's just absolutely awesome. You got to come I went last year. It was freaking awesome

And I was like nah, I'm not doing competition drive anymore

I don't want to do that and he goes well, it's too bad because I already bought your ticket

And you and you have six days to get your car prepped and I looked over at my car on jack stands with no suspension on it

The turbo was off of it. There is I mean it was not ready at all and

My wife at the time and I she God bless her she spent 12 hours

I took a couple of days off work

She spent 12 13 hour days with me in the garage just turned and wrenches and just trying to get that car ready and

We went 2015 Midwest festival is my first event ever with grid life and I

Never stopped going from there. It just the community the people it was such a stark contrast

to everything else that I had experienced up until that point not just in competition but just in

the people in the paddock and the vibes and the conversations and you know, I

Coming off the track from my first session

I see somebody walking up to me and I'm getting ready to throw down like all these guys fisted me

I did something that it's gonna go fist the cops right now and he goes, dude, that was was that you and the GTI?

That was awesome. And I was wait

You're not pissed. This is this is a good thing. We're this is we're having fun

That's that's the best is getting off track and like

Getting to talk to someone else that you just shared that experience with

No, it's yeah, there's very few feet feelings and emotions like that that I've experienced

Yeah, that ended up that did competition for to

2015 to

2019

And then mothballed the car from there

Did a couple of HPD events, but you know at that point I had been tracking the car since

2008

Yeah, I retired it from street duty with

82,000 miles on it and when I stopped doing competition events it had a hundred and sixty two thousand miles on it original motor original trans

The car was the car is tired the chassis is tired spherical bearings everywhere

So all the aurora spherical bearings are making noise suspension needs to be rebuilt turbo

I blew the turbo up at that Autobahn country club

One of the charge pipes blew off the intercooler and I was just in such a bad mood that I went three more laps and

overspun the crash

Yeah, that'll do it

Yeah, that was then now I now I just work it yeah

This this was interesting to me. You know after kind of hearing about

Wrenching on things

building things up

That you go from being

hands-on with your own vehicle

Driving around to

rent or

To do in tech and working grid and how did how did that transition happen?

That would have been 20

16 or 17. I want to say Adam will correct me on this for sure, but

Adam and Adam Jubey and I kind of hit it off just throughout the first couple of seasons and

He gave me a call one day and he's like hey, man

You come in an Autobahn country club and it's like nah, I don't have the money right now and he goes well

Can't pay you in money

But if I could pay you in track time if you want to come help out in tech and at the time James Morgan was running tech

and

I was like well, I mean

All I got to do is help out in tech and I can come drive my car. He's like yeah

Okay, I guess that makes sense sure and

That that was what sealed the deal

I'm pretty sure he was like the equivalent of a spider and he lured me into the web and then just sucked me in from there

but like

But now you've been doing it

For ten years for almost ten years here like that's maybe yeah at this point

It's not an accident like there's no luring happening at this point, right?

No, no, there's not this is like what Carson does now at least in your spare time

Oh, yeah, no, it's I mean even when I got my new job back in 2022

I thought

Before I even took the job. I looked at at my boss there who would become my boss and I said hey, you know, I do this

I do this thing. I need

You know minimum of four weeks that I'm gonna be gone throughout the season

and this is non-negotiable if you can't accommodate this then this is not the right job for me and

And he signed off on it and I took that job and I've just kind of been running with it

the

It's really the people up in the tower. It's the team that I work with

It's some of the the greatest people and the best friends I've ever made in my tire life

And I couldn't imagine not having them in my life anymore

So now it's just it's an obligation to family

Not to sound like Vin Diesel. I'm not it's you family

I mean, it's not not that

It's not not that

I think that's

That's interesting. I think you put that in a way that I haven't heard anyone else say

And

And if I can't I want to ask about the word obligation

Not because it necessarily has a negative connotation

but like

You

Used it though, so what can you talk talk to me a little bit more about that

Um, I think it really comes down to having seen what the series was when I came on board

And seeing how the team has changed and grown and what it is now

it

To use another phrase solidarity

you know the people that have

been

Trying to make grid life

The best that it can possibly be

Are the people that are up in the tower. They're the people that are in the tech shed

They're the people that are running impound. They're the people running the dino and those are the people that I

travel all over the country with

way too many times a season

and it just

I don't know it's uh, you know obligation is not a negative term in this

In this case scenario. It is a uh

You're just compelled. You know, these are these are the people that helped build this

I like to think I helped build it along with them and and I couldn't imagine not doing this with them

I was going to ask if you

At some point if you you have a little bit of a feeling of ownership

In the experience anyway like the when people go experience grid life

That's

something you've done

I think it's something the team's done. I I don't know how big of a role I have played in it

Um, I just know that I'm there to you know, make sure that people are safe. Make sure that the cars are safe

Uh, make sure that drivers are good not just in

their skillset

But it's one of the reasons that I like this podcast so much is you guys look at the mental aspect of racing

Which I think is way way way to overlooked

And so when somebody is having a hard time on the racetrack and they

They just come in for space, right? You know, they're they're

In the middle of a train and they just come into the pit lane and you can tell they're frazzled

You can tell that they are just stressed

They're not having a good time and to be able to just sit there and say hey, man. Let's just take a break

Let's let's take 30 seconds

Let's make sure your head's in the right place or girl

But let's make sure your head's in the right place and let's let's get back out there. Let's breathe

And let's make sure we're good

So to some degree ownership. Ah, no, I just I'm a I'm a small cog in the in a big machine

And you worked tech for a good long time and you still do occasionally, but now

you are

Kind of the hot grid

Leader

guy

Man, I don't know that I have a title. No, you're you're a little fluid for that, but

But like you talk to us army guys. Yeah, you talk to a lot of the drivers

Uh, when they're going out to grid or when they're going out to the tracks sometimes when they come in from

um

You know if they get a black flag station bottom of grid like all that kind of stuff so

In terms of interaction with drivers, how do you typically see

Your role or your identity

In those moments, um

Somewhere between a zen master and principal

Hmm

Okay

You know if you're if you're coming in for a black flag, it's because he did something wrong

so and I like

Not my words, but I've been told by many a driver that uh that I have the

disappointed dad approach

Which seems to be incredibly effective of you know, I'm not mad at you, but I am disappointed in you

And I think that goes a long way it seems like people can deal with disappointment better than anger

Well, you'll get a lot more with sugar than vinegar. That's for damn sure

and

If anything, we're all there for the same reason. We're all dumb. We all decided to partake in this hobby. So, you know, I

I don't ever want to make somebody's experience negative. I always want to

Help guide people into reframing their mindsets to that. This is a positive experience. You chose to be here

This is what you decided to do with your time and your money

so

If you're not having a good time, I feel like that's

counter-intuitive to

Why we're doing it. So I just want to help people kind of

reframe that

Are you pulling on your previous driving experience when you talk about that kind of stuff?

Uh, sometimes yeah, I mean it's you kind of have to be

Especially with black flag and you know anytime that you're in a disciplinary enroll

You kind of have to pull from a little bit of everything

You know, some of it is is lessons that my dad taught me some of it is lessons that I learned on the racetrack

If it's if it's race etiquette, then yeah, I'm pulling directly from my experiences and things that I've seen and done wrong

That somebody else scolded me for

So what are some of the most

Common

Talks that you have to have

in hot in hot grid

Can be positive or negative can be both

Uh, let's see probably

Stop being a horny teenager

Get yourself on

like you know coming in for

Any various things where if I have a three drivers come in and say hey dude in this blue car

Is just a menace out there. He's dived by me in multiple corners. They're not giving me point buys

They're not paying attention to the cars around them. You know, that is what I call the horny teenager

That is the guy that's out there or the girl that's out there that is just very much in their own head

Mash the throttle turn as hard as you can go as fast as you can with zero

Zero attention to what else is happening around them

And that's the most egregious and scary thing for me

So that is the number one thing that I take issue with is you are it

Not that it's good to put yourself in harm's way, but when you are putting others in harm's way for the sake of yourself

That can't happen

So that's the most intense and negative i'm air quoting this you guys can't see it on the podcast, but

Uh, that's the most negative thing that I have to deal with

And it's that that's where the the disappointed dad approach really takes takes hold

You know Andy vocal

Absolute legend of a human being

But you know when he was younger and first starting out his first couple years in grid life

He was a little bit of a little bit of a mad lad out there

But uh, you have the the conversation with him and now he's one of the cleanest drivers on the on the track out there

You know the guy is just he embodies

That that change from i'm out here to to beat everybody to i'm out here to finish a race

as best as I can

So you get to see and

Kind of watch these drivers over the years grow and develop

It's awesome

Yeah

It's absolutely. I it's probably one of my favorite things in the world

Uh, is that having done this as long as I have and you know, I'm not even one of the the old guard from grid life

But to see drivers progress cars change and it's it's one of the coolest things that I get to experience

Would

And what do you like about that? I'm because I'm recalling

You know kind of your hands on nature

your

almost bootstraps

Mentality sort of thing, you know, like what what is it about seeing people?

In that environment

progressing moving

growing

What's that like for you?

I think part of it is I get to live vicariously through them

Sure, since I'm not driving anymore, you know, I I'm not developing my skills. I'm not putting any, you know

personal best lap times out there

but

I think very in the same vein is

Going back to my childhood of taking something that is broken

and

making it better

not saying that drivers are broken

but

Seeing that progression

Is really, you know you as an instructor. I'm sure you get it too the the satisfaction and

The sense of fulfillment that you get

When you've got somebody that's out there and they're clearly struggling

And you give them a couple of tips you give them a couple of pointers and they come back in and they went three seconds faster than their best time before that

Sure, you know, that's the fact that I was able to help that person

Get better at something that they want to do

Is just it fills my heart

But you stayed in the the role of tech and grid and

instead of like

You know poaching scott's role as like super teacher guy

The

Well, there are far better people out there that are more qualified than I

I think I kind of I found my role

And where where I belong in the the hierarchy and grand scheme of things

I'll I'll leave the the coaching to people like scott

So when you decided to put a pause on your own track driving

Did you know at the time that how big of a pause it was going to be or

When was the decision to like

This is gonna be a while

Um

It's a two-part answer one was that I one of my my other biggest passions and hobbies is

Hi-fi audio like two-channel stereo

and

when I

Had

Devoted all of my spare resources to racing. I actually had to sell off

You know everything that I had to fund

Building my race car at the time so I had completely abandoned

My second biggest love and hobby which was audio

And when I realized that my car needed, you know, I've got over six figures into a Volkswagen gti

Which is ludicrous

Um and the hours is just the insane

And so when I realized that that thing needed, you know, about 30 000 dollars in work in another two years of stripping it back down

And and then I hadn't I'd given up on my other hobby

You know, initially it was I need to take a break from racing

So that I can get back into my other hobby because the big part in that was that

you know racing is is very much a solitary thing

And I had a daughter I have a I have a daughter and I had a wife and

You know, I was the only one truly enjoying the racing thing

But audio is something that my whole family could enjoy

You know doing like a home theater setup and having movie nights on friday nights with my wife and my daughter and

That's something we could enjoy every single day. Whereas racing was something I enjoyed

20 days out of the year 30 days out of the year

sure

And so I I hit the pause button

It's like I can't afford to fix the race car

I want to get back into my my audio hobby and then spend some more time at home with my family and

And then it I didn't know that it was going to be

You know six

plus years

So I think you've done

Go ahead

You've exemplified the fact that I've been talking to somebody else about this in reference to motorcycles that

Like a race vehicle is a consumable the entire vehicle is a consumable at some point

Which is not something that most people think about when they go into it

You think about it really fast when you put the car in the wall at 120 miles an hour in total it

I mean, there's that

But

Where was that?

Road America at the kink

That was my other because at one point in time I had three mark five gtis

So I was I really really truly was developing that chassis platform

And that was uh road america. I had an inner cv right inner cv joint granated

at 135 flat out through the kink and with a gripper plate style lsd all the power went to the front left wheel

and just

G did that thing off the track and and pinballed me down

found the kink

That sounds terrible. I still have that door on my garage in in my garage on the wall. That's the only thing that's still standing

So why have the car anymore

is and maybe maybe we're not quite ready to have this conversation but

Why why do you sell on it?

Way too much time way too much money and way too much of my

soul

Is put into that car to walk away from it to know that I took that from a bone stock off the floor

Volkswagen to what it is now. I mean

29 2018 when fcp euro had a really big presence with grid life at at uh at midwest festival

I mean, I had people coming up to Sean Fenton. It was you know part of the grid life machine comes up to me

He's like, you know, how how did you get a tcr car?

I was like, no, no, no, no, I didn't get that I built that

It was not bought from somebody other than a stock car from Volkswagen that I turned it into this

So I just there's no way that I will ever be able to get rid of that car and I absolutely have plans of

you know once

once my current life situation kind of

Falls back into where where I'm hoping it will and I have a little bit more time and resources

I'm absolutely going to start tearing that car apart and and putting it back together and rebuilding it and

It'll be back on the track. I can promise you that

Man, that'll be a day on it

No, man

That will be a day angels will sing the skies will part rainbow

double rainbows everywhere

It'll be interesting like it's

Like you'll have expectations

No, I won't

I'm going no, no, no, no

It's I've been doing it long enough and I know that expectations are a great

fast lane to disappointment

Yeah

but like

At the same time it's it will have been quite some time since you've

Been on track certainly with that car

And you remember because I have wheeled the g35 a few times after I after I retired that car

We still had the g35 which I will admit is probably the most fun

I've ever had on a track in a car ever. I mean is in a it drifts

pretty well

It when it wants it drifts when it wants to that's not when you want it to

Yeah, it'll just be interesting because it it's not going to be what it used to be

It's gonna be something new

Yep, because it's going to be different

And you're going to be different. Yeah

That'll be it. Yeah, I'm thrilled. It's zero expectations going into it if

Once that thing's back on the track, that's all I need. I don't care how fast it is

I'm just going to turn it into an hPD. You rock it. Yeah

Well, I want to be there regardless

You better be baby

What uh, what's your season look like? What do you have coming up?

Uh, we're doing six events this year. I think cmp is our first one. Uh, now now I'll be at all of them

Here we go

Here we go, baby. Let's let's do this. This is going to be an interesting season

It's very different from everything we've done before so

a little bit, uh, wider spacing and

Should be which I'm sure a lot of drivers are going to appreciate it's so interesting to see, you know, you do

Was it 2021 22 and we were doing 13 events in a season and everyone was like this is too much

And then we scaled it back and I'm like, no, it's too little. You can't please everybody

Because we're always comparing it to what it had been

Always

Um, but I'm that, you know, we've got the the best the best, uh

Motor sports team. I think we've ever had

Nice

Well, where can people follow you and learn more about your shenanigans?

Oh god, I don't have much of a social media presence

It's not really my thing, but if you want to see pictures of uh clouds

And skies all across the country and and pictures of racetracks when there's no cars on it

Uh, I have an instagram. I think it's cars and crystal. Maybe I don't know

something

Something look look me up. I think there used to be some Volkswagen's on there

They're still there. They're just at the bottom. I know when we were doing, uh,

My uh, my ex-wife and I had uh team crystal racing. We actually started they know, I'm air quoting started a race team

And we had a team crystal racing

Instagram that got jacked by some russian hacker and I lost everything. So I had to hit the reset button

As uh, as I think it's Carson dot crystal or Carson crystal

I remember the team crystal thing. I didn't know it got hacked

Yeah, that's how I lost that they changed the password and I can never get into it and instagram doesn't care

That couldn't get ahold of anybody to try and get the account back

I mean, it's still out there somewhere if you want to see the stuff that we were doing

10 years ago. Oh, but it's not me. It's still up

It's still up. I just can't get into it. I don't have access to it anymore

But if there's anything weird going on it, it's not me. I hold no affiliation with fh anymore

That's awesome

Well, Carson, thanks for uh, thanks for hanging out with us taking some time out

Absolutely, hopefully you didn't bore everybody. No

You're good

Good to get to I appreciate you guys. You guys are absolutely awesome

One of the few podcasts that I listen to

Every episode. I appreciate that

I'm sorry

I'm not

Well, we're I'm not at all

We're at track walking podcast on most of the things and discord is really kind of where we

We do our hangout link is in the show notes. Um

Best thing you can do is share our episode with a friend family member or distant relative

And uh like and subscribe and rate and all all that stuff does help the uh, do the things

Do it all guys. You know the steps

We just need you to do them

Um

Do it for me and Carson won't be mad if you don't

He will be disappointed though

It's very true

All right, well that's gonna do it for us this week for the three of us. I'm scott and i'm seth

And i'm carcin have a good week and we'll talk to you next

226 - So Many Stories... (Carson Christel)

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