Track Walking Mar 2, 2026

229 - The Spares Quadrant

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60:09

Car

Mazda 2

The Mazda 2 is a small car that is easy to drive in cities. Because it's small, working inside it, like fixing wires, can be tricky since there isn't much space.

Term

transponder

A transponder is a small gadget that helps race organizers know how fast you are going and when you finish a lap. You can rent one or buy your own to save money and make racing easier.

Term

daily driver

A daily driver is the car you use every day to get around, like going to work or school. It's the car you depend on the most.

Term

automatic transmission

An automatic transmission is a system in a car that changes gears by itself, so you don't have to use a clutch or shift gears manually. It makes driving easier.

Brand

Subaru

Subaru is a car company from Japan. Their cars often have special engines and all-wheel drive, which helps with driving in snow or rain.

Term

manual transmission

A manual transmission means you use a pedal and stick to change gears yourself, instead of the car doing it automatically.

Term

engine braking

Engine braking means the car slows down by itself when you take your foot off the gas, without pressing the brakes. This happens mostly in manual cars and helps you stop more smoothly.

Term

torque converter

The torque converter is a part in automatic cars that helps the engine and transmission work together smoothly. When you take your foot off the gas, it lets the car roll without slowing down much.

Term

compression braking

Compression braking means slowing down your motorcycle by letting off the gas and using the engine to slow you down instead of pressing the brakes. But this doesn't turn on your brake lights.

Term

brake lights

Brake lights are the red lights at the back of a motorcycle or car that turn on when you press the brakes. They tell other drivers that you are slowing down so they don't crash into you.

Part

rear drum hubs

Rear drum hubs are parts at the back wheels that help the car stop. They work by pressing brake shoes inside a drum to slow down the car.

Part

rear discs

Rear discs are parts on the back wheels that help stop the car better than older brake parts. They use a disc and pads to slow the car down.

Car

Honda Accord

The Honda Accord is a well-known car that many people drive. It is easy to find parts for and is often fixed or changed by people who like working on cars.

Car

Acura TL

The Acura TL is a nice car that is comfortable and drives well. It's a popular choice for people who want a good mix of power and luxury.

Concept

endurance racing

Endurance racing is a type of car race that lasts a very long time, so cars need to be tough and drivers need to be ready for a long drive.

Term

spare parts

Spare parts are extra pieces you keep just in case something breaks so you can fix it fast.

Part

coil

A coil is a part in a car or motorcycle that helps make the spark needed to start the engine. It changes the small battery power into a big spark to make the engine run.

Term

wrench

When someone says 'wrench' about cars, they mean fixing or working on the car using tools. It's like saying 'do some car repairs yourself.'

Term

clutch

The clutch is a part in cars with manual gearboxes that helps you switch gears smoothly. You press the clutch pedal to change gears without damaging the car.

Part

compression tester

A compression tester is a tool that checks how strong the engine is by measuring the pressure inside it. This helps find out if the engine parts are working well or if something is broken.

Term

consumables

Consumables are things like oil and brake fluid that your car uses up and needs to be replaced regularly to keep it working well.

Term

engine oil

Engine oil is the special liquid inside your car's engine that helps all the parts move smoothly and keeps the engine from getting too hot.

Term

brake fluid

Brake fluid is the liquid that helps your car's brakes work when you press the pedal to stop the car.

Term

coolant

Coolant is a special liquid that keeps your car's engine from getting too hot by carrying heat away.

Part

brake pads

Brake pads are parts that help your car stop by pressing on the discs when you hit the brakes.

Car

The Mazda Miata is a small, fun car that’s easy to drive and really enjoyable on twisty roads. It’s known for being reliable and not too expensive, so many people like to use it for weekend drives or as their first sports car.

Part

alternator

The alternator is a part in your car that makes electricity to keep the battery charged and run things like lights and radio when the car is on.

Term

tow vehicle

A tow vehicle is a car or truck that pulls something else, like a trailer. It needs special care because it works harder than normal cars.

Car

BMW M6

The BMW M6 is a fancy, fast car that’s made to be both comfortable and sporty. It’s like a luxury car that can also go really fast and handle well on the road.

Concept

Le Mans 24 hour

Le Mans 24 hour is a very long car race that lasts a whole day. Teams race their cars nonstop to see who can go the farthest and fastest without breaking down.

Brand

Audi

Audi is a company that makes cars. They are famous for making fast and reliable cars that race in big competitions like the Le Mans 24 hour.

LIVE

Hi, I'm Scott

And I'm Seth and we are trackwalking

tonight

Seth sounds a little more echo-y than usual

Because there's nothing in the room you're hearing right now

There's I can't find a room in my house with enough

Sound absorbing things to not sound like I'm in an empty room every room sounds empty because it is so

Well, you're talking at your curtains. So

There we go. Yeah, and this is the only room that has curtains in it

Every other room is just bare windows and bare walls and I took the rocks off my walls

So like that was kind of a big deal because I have we've got some pretty good fossils like big fossils

Yeah, and they were attached to the wall in a very secure way

And I took the fossils down and so that was the the last big

Trilobites, right?

Trilobites, we had a big huge like like 18 inch by 18 inch thing with four

big hand-sized trilobites on it. We have a big thing of

Sandstone with fossil fish from Wyoming

Really beautiful piece of petrified wood that I bought for Shannon in New Mexico when I was out there with my dad one time and

then a huge slice of

Agate that's like it's like 12 by 18 inches

See through we put that one in front of a window because you can see through it and that's a big huge piece

So those are those are our four big big fossils that that hang in the room

We're nerds in case you forgot that Seth was a trained geologist

This is your reminder

Yeah, and this is all painly intelligent you but I still love it because it's made of rocks. So it's cool

Yeah, I like how you called it a rock, but you're like, I mean technically a fossil

I mean, it's a fossil all rocks are fossils, but no all fossils are rocks, but not all rocks are fossils. So it's a fact

Yeah, I

Spent my weekend playing with a really dumb transponder wire in and

Would have taken not very long had I really wanted it

to be on a

switched a

Switched power line which really on the Mazda 2 can only be grabbed from inside

So of course I meant fishing a dumb wire through the

Dumb grommet through the dumb firewall and I

Was bleeding like there's still blood on

some

Studs on the inside of the car. It's fine. You're never gonna see him

But once you get far enough into the underdash area everything is sharp

well and

This car is set up for a tiny person

So there is no room between the pedals and the seat

Because I'm set up for a tiny person and so trying to get your hand up there

I can't get upside down in there. I was gonna ask you can't even do the upside down thing. Can you know?

So it's just blind

kneeling next to the car and like reaching up like I'm some

crazy weird doctor and

Trying to find just trying to find out one spot

And oh my god

So irritating like what should have been a five-minute job turned into like a 45-minute adventure

Because it's one wire, right? You have to like just take one wire from the interior fuse box

There's a great ground right next to where I mounted the transponder

crimped

Ever perfect done and trying to figure out

I was just gonna grab the fuse from the under hood fuse box

But all the circuits that I wanted to jump all had constant power and the only

Switched power was to like the fuel injectors

which I

Don't feel like is a great way to

Power a transponder. I mean, it's an adventure. You do that. It'd be a choice

But yeah, kind of the

The joke in my head was you know, it took me all these years to finally buy

the wire and no subscription transponder that I always wanted and

It's going in the monster too. I

Still it blew my mind when you told me you just bought a transponder because that is if there's any racer math that makes sense

It's buy a transponder. Yeah, it's

well

You need to have some sense of time in front of you like you need to own a calendar and plan and

Be able to do basic math

And I don't think there's a whole lot of racers who do that

Because like it's 30 bucks here. It's 30 bucks there. Actually. I think it's 40

now to rent at grid life, but

Yeah, just you pay your money go on

It's cheaper than buying a real one, but like I could also turn around and sell this for

What I bought it for easily

I rented it

I rented a transponder once and thought it was stupid and went home and bought one

But that was back in the day when you could just spend the money and buy a non subscription transponder

and they would just sell it to you and

Life was good. I don't even know if they had

Subscription once and I think it was all non subscription. That was the business model

Yeah, and then they started subscriptions after that and then they got rid of the non subscription ones and then

My transponder became worth more than I paid for it quickly

Yeah, and here we are I've

I've saved at least

Twice the cost of the transponder in rental fees since I bought it and I've loaned it to Brian to freeze several times

It's been on a number of race cars

that aren't mine and I think it's saved like $200 in rental fees on cars that aren't mine and

billion motorcycle things and

Yeah kids go buy a transponder buy a non subscription transponder

Battery one if you have to wire to your car if you're feeling bougie like Scott

Don't don't rent rentals. It's a bad idea. Don't do it

yeah, there's a

there's a company who's represented by a woman named Julie on

Facebook and

From time to time. She lists a few

transponders up some even have like

new 3d printed

housings on them

They like go through and refurbish them and if they don't need a new body

They'll just like maybe repot and like pour new epoxy on it like mine has

Stuff like that. But

Yeah

It does the blinky-blinky

green light and so

Mine still does for blinky lights after all these years. There you go

mine just does a normal blank because

If it blanks it has power and that's all I need so

Yeah, we don't I don't I guess probably the the big motorcycles can wire them in permanently

But in the motorcycle world, that's not something that people do. They don't install transponders permanently on bikes. They they just

They charge them and hook them in so yep

Make sense

so all of this moving and

Packing and selling

Got your brain thinking

Yeah, I sold three more motorcycles by the way, so just want to point that out

I'm kicking ass with selling motorcycles now. I'm on a roll. Okay, so you know, but you know my question then, right?

How many do I have left? Yes, I have

Appreciably less than fingers and toes at this point so I could count them all and I could

Definitely count them all in my fingers and toes for the first time in a while. Okay, and how many are you gonna get downed keeping?

I think I'm gonna keep 11

Okay

Okay, they'll be they'll be spread out at various places and I say that like like Sonya is going to get her old bike is gonna be built into a

Like an actual good pit bike for the racing that she's doing

A couple bikes are a handful of bikes are going to the cottage

Couple bikes are going to my father-in-law's house two bikes are going to my sister's

Heard a little ranch yet that she owns in Colorado to ride around in the sand there

So like I'm spreading them around. I'm not gonna have a leaven in my garage in Durango, but I

Feel like a leaven is reasonable. It's I mean compared to where you were. Yes

100 yeah, absolutely by percentage. Yes. Yeah, so yeah, like if you sold half your cars

You'd be like, whoa, I've hardly any cars. It's true. I would have one two three four. I would have two cars

Yeah, and you'd feel naked. So that's where I'm gonna be with 11 motorcycles

I'm gonna be buying a new to me car

Within a few months

So I'm going to have five for a time until I sell

Is this your is this gonna be your commuter car that you've been talking about buying for at least two years

It's been a minute. It's been

It's not gonna be a minivan. Ah, I couldn't do it

They're so good though, they're good, but like it was a lot of money a lot more money than

What I'm looking at

Gas fuel economy was worse. It wouldn't be nearly as fun just to like I

Mean not the one I'm getting is gonna be super fun, but it's gonna be more fun than a minivan

So are you gonna tell me you're gonna wait until you get it and then we'll have that discussion. Yeah, wait

It's not really a big deal. So it's okay. It's going to be my first

daily driver

That's an automatic in my life

Wow, yeah, I hope the Subaru it's not the super

Yeah, the van is my first automatic that I've purchased

Okay

But this will be my first like true daily

With it, so yeah, that's some old man stuff. I love that you're coming over

I think

One that's gonna be nice and then we'll get to

What you've been thinking about one that's gonna be nice is whenever anyone's behind me

Coming away from a stop light

People always take off at the same speed as I do and then I go to shift into second and they have to slam on their brakes because they're like

And I'm sure like some of them get pissed because why is this guy break checking me sort of thing even though

I'm obviously not breaking because just nobody drives

Manuals anymore for most people to be aware that that's a thing that people can do

Really you shift slow too. I mean I do this. It's not a fast-shifting car

It's a it's got the clutch delay in it and it's

Yeah, try to speed

Shift and sometimes maybe it'll do it by like it's not how it was designed. Yeah

The second that I'm gonna be sad about though is that in a manual car when you lift off the accelerator

You actually have engine braking

Because the transmission like everything's like lengths but not automatic you lift and the torque converter

Just opens up and you just coast and so you don't get that D cell

Just from lifting off of the accelerator the same way that you do in a manual

Right, and yeah, and so I'm

Little sad that I'm not gonna have that because that means I'm gonna be like a lot of other people on the commuter lane like

Tapping their brakes constantly instead of you know, just keeping it in the one gear and

Stuff like that

one of the things they teach you when riding street motorcycles now is

Compression braking is fine

But you should whenever you're doing that you should think about grabbing just enough brake to turn your brake lights on

Because motorcyclists getting rear-ended is a huge problem

And one of the reasons they get rear-ended is because the brake lights aren't on

Because they get so used to just compression braking and not using the brake and cars just don't see that they're slowing down

So that's one of the things they teach you now that would be good. It's pretty interesting

I have to try to remember that whenever I'm street riding to do that

So well usually you're on a slow enough bike that you've got a lot of other things to worry about too

Well, yeah, I mean usually I ride bikes without lights at all. So it's not it's not really an issue like opeds, you know

Yeah, yeah

I have been

Thinking about something that I wanted to talk to you about. Mm-hmm

Kind of want to talk to you about it for a long time since I've since I hung out with you at the track and like helped you fix your car and stuff

Yeah, not fix your car, but I mean work on things

And I'm going to talk to you about spares

Mm-hmm

And the the reason it's on the forefront of my mind is

Yeah, I had like 22 motorcycles, but I

Almost

Almost every motorcycle I have I'm like, oh, what could break and so what spares so I need for it

And so as I sell motorcycles

I'm like, here's the motorcycle you purchased and here are all the spare parts that I've purchased

For it plus any parts that I've taken off of it plus probably broken parts that that I just saved because I mean, why wouldn't you save them and

I don't do that. But yeah, and it's kind of I still have I have a cord rear hubs up in my rafters

For shits and giggles. What are you doing?

I converted the the accord to rear discs and the rear drums the rear drum hubs are still sitting up there because

No, I asked Dale and if he wanted them and he said no and I was like, all right

And so I just left them there Jesus. I actually have two sets of rear hubs for an accord. I have

I don't remember. No, if you remember James Houghton had trouble with

Hubs breaking on the TL and then they went to accord hubs because they're steel instead of aluminum

I actually bought a set of aluminum TL hubs in the junkyard to try to use and so I have aluminum

Accord rear disc hubs and

Steel accord drum hubs sitting in my rafters because that's the kind of guy I am. I save things just in case

And here we are and here we are and for

for endurance racing, I've always been big in spares like

Sure spare brake cables spare throttle cables spare throttle tubes spare grips

spare levers obviously, you know brake levers clutch levers shift levers

Spare knee pucks when we're riding and so like on and on and on spare spark plugs

We one time had a coil fail. So, you know every bike I've raced since then has got a spare coil. That's that's tucked in and so I

Am the consummate spares guy at the track

I always have spares for anything that I've ever had fail while racing motorcycles

and when I was driving cars, I had a tendency to have

More spare things than was reasonable a lot of the time

Because you've been hurt before

Yeah, that's the thing is I'm kind of what I'm kind of wondering to what degree my obsession with spares is a little bit of a mental illness

And I wanted to talk to you about spares because you seem much more level headed

With spares than I feel like I am. Yes

well, I

For years

We got to the racetrack in our car towing a tiny trailer and so

We really had to pick and choose what came with us and what was important enough to take up space

Because in the car with us like we could

You know, we could put some stuff on the back parcel shelf

we could put some stuff in the trunk and

Becky could put a few things like under her legs in the front seat sort of thing that sounds incredibly safe

And like outside of that it's got to go on the trailer, but the trailer is carrying

Spare wheels and tires. It's carrying our two little coolers that we had and

then inside the box had like

The jack it had some camping equipment

Like, you know, because we had you know mats

Sleeping bags tent

Like that kind of stuff and like, you know clothes bags

So like there wasn't a whole lot of room for spares

So we had to be very intentional with what we brought

What did you feel?

Was important then and maybe I'd ask you like what do you feel is important now

To bring to a track weekend

Like like what are the things that have to be there? So

Thinking about this, I think everyone needs to start with the question. What are you willing to work on at the track?

as step one

Because if you aren't willing to

wrench

Like don't bring anything

There's no point in taking up the space and doing all that stuff if you aren't willing

You know to use the spares that you've brought

Yeah, if you're not gonna drop the transmission, don't bring a clutch

Yes, 100% like if you don't want to

Diagnose a dead engine don't bring a compression tester

Like if it gets to that point, you're like, I'm not fixing it here. Don't bring it like it's there's no point

And there's no shame in that

Everyone has a line

that they just don't

that they won't do at the racetrack and that's fine and

And

So I think that's got to be your first question because that's going to

Limit whatever else you bring like if you're not gonna swap a transmission

Don't bring a transmission. Don't bring a clutch

You know if an engine goes don't bring an engine don't bring like the specialty tools that you would need

to change an engine

But like I think the most basic level of spares would come in as

Consumables

So I'm talking fluids

Dip fluid transmission fluid

Engine oil

brake fluid

coolant water, you know all of that stuff and

You know again like if you need to

Drain all the oil for some reason

there would be a reason behind that do you bring an extra filter or

Did you do what I did for years and was just to bring a spare court in case you needed like a top-off or something like that?

Because at the time if we were draining the oil

Something had gone wrong

Something else is right and so if I get to that point I

Will either go buy it beg borrow and steal or something like that

But there was no point for a long time for me having that

Now on weekends we do tend to carry a full oil change

Transmission change stuff like that because we have the room and

You know, hopefully we've got some some help and some people who'd be willing to pitch in sort of thing

So consumables fluids brake pads

Almost always rotors

Hardly ever rotors

Okay, we monitor that closely enough that

Major cracks for us weren't going to appear and then become catastrophic by the end of a weekend I

Think I did for the Miata. I think I just had one ring

Just because you couldn't

Couldn't ever find them if I needed it sort of thing. No, I had to have no

I don't think I did because I need two different rings for the front

But like

With mooncake

They're fairly findable at parts stores and stuff like that. So it's less of an issue

Those cars don't really go through brakes much, but like brake pads

You know, sometimes you go into a weekend with half half used brake pads

You know, we just keep this bear in the box

Tires or another thing like maybe they're fine. All right, you could bring another set if you want

But yeah, the car things that the car regularly goes through

Just in good normal use. That's kind of the first most basic tier of spares

So can I tell you something weird about?

motorcycle guys and tires, okay

almost

Very very few motorcycle guys have a spare set of wheels

If they do they have their reins mounted to them sure and

They're their race wheels

If something happens and they need a new tire, they just carry it over to the Dunlop tire guy

And he goes, we're put the new one on you know takes the old one off

Put the new one on and they go on their merry way

but it's with such a change to come from the car world where

Everyone has a spare set of wheels like that's the first thing you buy when you buy a car is more wheels

And it's not that motorcycle wheels are that expensive like they don't cost more than car wheels necessarily

The only difference is the brakes are are attached to the wheels instead of being attached to the car

but

It still blows my mind

People go to a race weekend and in order to get a new set of tires on it

You have to put the bike on stands take the wheels off

Carry the wheels over to the Dunlop tire guy

Have him spoon new tires on carry them back to the bike and then reassemble it

But you guys can also change them yourselves if you really needed to yeah

Yeah, you could do it with tire spoons like in in the pits you could right theoretically do that

It's generally is

It's better to do that in your garage than at the track, but right so like

That's really not an option

for most people

And and at most track days

Unless you know the shop on site happens to be open

Or something like that like tire changers just typically aren't readily available

Unless you're to drift weekend

and

But because every drift weekend I've been to has got somebody they're changing tires because one of the drifters

Brings their own tire changer right sets it up because they've realized that that's also like a decent way to make a buck

Yeah, like even if it's a quick like basic change like ten bucks a tire. I don't know 20 whatever they're charging

You know they could recoup it if they just bring somebody to run in

That's that

Yeah, so fundamentally that was a weird thing when I started racing motorcycles was like we'll get spare wheels, right?

And they're like well, yeah for the reins and I'm like, but what if we need to change them?

And they're like we'll just change the tires on the wheels

But you could just have a set of wheels with tires on them and we'd be fine

I would still want a spare set like I

Did they're tiny they take up no room like why not it just feels weird so

Okay, okay, so consumables make sense, especially because sometimes you'll have like we'll be running

break pet for me

Like when I would run cars, I'm running brake pads that you can't just get right like you have to

Order them from a guy and sometimes like on the accord like he's like yeah, I can give them for you

I have to make them so

It'll be a you know a couple days until I make a set of them and then send them to you. Yep

And even if AutoZone has pads for your car

please

Consider what you're doing and consider the people you're sharing the track with

Unless you're just driving home on them. No. Yep. I've got stories about that people

through an AutoZone pads right before like race seven or race four

sending it on brand new AutoZone pads in a wheel-to-wheel race and

Finding out about it afterwards. It's like yeah, but it turned out fine and I'm like

Yeah, I

Might not have like I don't know

Nobody agreed whatever what he said. Yeah, it's fine that I'm racing next to you with you doing sketchy shit. Yeah. Yeah, I

Guess that's why we're all in cages

So, yeah, so yeah first level for me is

Just continual stuff than normally but again like this should be stuff that only bring the stuff that you're willing

to address

Okay at the track

second level for me is

going to be I

Wanted to say like rechargeable stuff, but that's kind of outside of a true spares package

but

Second level for me would be again things that you're willing to address at the track and things that

Typically have proven themselves to be less than reliable

Okay

Like if you're doing a fairly solid mounted K motor throttle bodies

At the early early in the go right hundred percent. Yes

And okay within the same

Grouping I think

Priority would be given to if this thing breaks you do not drive

Because sometimes a thing will break and it's not great, but like the cars fine. It'll just do this little weird thing

Okay, but like on Miata's if you have the stock hubs and

The rear or front hubs start to crack

like you can't drive and

And that's your weekend and so you know one of the spares that we carried was a spare rear spare front hub and

spare bearings for both of them as well

And that's just what what I did for until I got the the good hubs

But so this so again things that are less than reliable and

Things that if something does go wrong like you're done for the weekend like a melted motor mount perhaps

That would be something a spare motor mount that you would put in your spares package

Do you kid? Did you carry one after you melted one? Yes?

100 Wow

Well

Again small enough light enough, and I have a big ass trailer now

So I could just shove it in one of the drawers and forget I have it until later

The second tier and that would be of course like things that may prove to be less reliable

But like the car would be fine

So like the intake manifold bolts that broke early on that we had

I still carried the spare

Offset washers and a couple spare bolts with me never have had to use them since I did that

But just always carry despair and it wouldn't end our weekend

but like

You know have a bit of a vacuum leak and things wouldn't sound the best sort of thing

Yeah

Speaking of bolts

Wheel studs like have you had any issues breaking wheel studs or do you put

ARPs in there and then I have to worry about it type thing

I have ARPs in the good hubs with the good bearings

But even with stock

stock hubs

The studs were never an issue. It was always the hubs themselves that would fail

Okay, so yeah, I know on certain cars Subaru's like the the Subaru's that people rally crossed broken wheel studs was pretty common

So yeah, yeah, just always always thought about that. Yeah, so

Part of this is knowing your car and you know the longer you run with it the more

You're going to encounter

things

And it's just important to again, just know your boundaries what you're willing to work on at the track and

What you have the ability to carry and what you're willing to

Basically purchase for yourself in the future

So that would kind of be my second tier

belts

Do you always carry no belts or do you don't worry about it? No never on the cars

We've had never had to really worry about them

Okay, so that's just a regular service interval thing if it looks cracky plays it exactly

Yep

We carried spare alternators as well

Because we man we had a couple like a year and a half or we were just running through alternators like once almost every

track weekend

Good Lord that was on the stock me on a motor or the K motor K motor

Never really vibrating themselves to death or you don't know what it had to have been

But I've tried

Used Denso's like used OEM Denso's I tried

remand

part store

alternators, I finally broke down and bought a new one that died like

Nothing was working and

Adam Jubey had this little old guy near him who rebuilt starters and alternators

And he's like he's pretty good if you want to give him a shot

So I sent him my alternator

He rebuilt it sent it back to me and that thing has been on the car for the last four seasons

That's why I don't know what secret sauce you put into it, but it's amazing

So he's a witch basically I mean that alternator came off the dead engine went on to the

Other dead engine and now it's on the really good engine and so pern along

Perfect. Do you still carry a spare alternator though in the trailer? Yes, but that's generally for other people at this point

Okay

So yeah, so that's my second tier third tier is going to be

The things that have a lower likelihood of breaking like kind of more

periphery stuff

so this for me would be like a tie rod and

which on our cars like they don't just fail

Right like maybe you'll you know

They'll have like a tiny bit of extra play

But it's not going to be catastrophic cars still going to drive fine with it

You know if you get into an incident like car-to-car contact or car-to-wall contact or something you could bend one

but again the likelihood of that it

Rarely happens and so do you want to bring that or not? So that's that would kind of be my third

tier of

stuff

Much less likely

More peripheral what not?

Yeah, I

Think I think a side quest thing would be and this will be like call it side X like

Not just spares, but would be like things that you're testing

So if you're curious about what a smaller or larger

Air filter is going to do

Like bring one of those

Let's see what else like a different wing try that if you want to try different visor bring that

Just different compound of brake pad different type of brake fluid like you know bring

Bring whatever but that's that's kind of more of a special

Category like you can call it spares, but it's really like more of a testing package of things and stuff

You seem really logical about this

Yeah, I mean in in hindsight I can like break it down into this, but like it's just been years of like oh

Yeah, I guess we should probably take this now. I don't really need this anymore like I I bring a spare

couple

Quartz of oil for the tow fan

Just because like well, we've got a section for fluid. So like just

You know, let's bring a couple of those a little thing of automatic transmission fluid just in case

You know, we're bringing a big old like three gallon thing of water. So that'll cover the fan too just in case

You know just stuff like that because you need spares for your your tow vehicle sometime too

This is true. What do you think about nuts and bolts?

So this

This would fall under the same category so far like if you tend to

break things or

Like if bolts have been known to fail on certain parts of the car, then yeah, or if you happen to

Like if you're known for

Braking sway bar and link stuff when you go to

Adjust it

Like sure bring some of those. It's those are typically so small so easy

But any like specialty bolt

that has a

Decent chance of breaking like bring that

But really on stuff that we've needed

We just hasn't been a thing. I think the only bolt for that purpose that I bring is

for the Miata I

Have a long. I have the long super long bolt that goes in the rear lower

Outside

control arm

So it goes like through

Both of the bushings on the control arm and through the knuckle and so if you have wheel to wheel contact

The control arm usually is okay, but the bolt itself will bend

Okay, and so it's a pretty easy like check you just loosen it up and you spin the bolt itself and you can see if it

like actively changes the alignment a little bit right and

Like that's such a large bolt and such a specialty thing that like

Unless you're going to a dealership that happens to be open and happens to find one like

People just aren't going to have it so I carry one of those

But in terms of like a nut and bolt selection

This would be I think in my fourth tier which would be like communal

Communal offerings, okay, and so I have two kind of DeWalt organizing

boxes of

nuts bolts

washers

Hydraulic fittings

Like strange

Things that we've needed for like one reason or another at some point maybe

sort of thing and

My rule is like if you bring something like if you need something, please take it and if you're able to give

Back to the communal box

Please put drop something in so

So you're more likely to need things like people will need things like

Seat bolts like things that hold the seats together and seat bolts or like, you know

Some weird thing happens to break and they need a an M10 bolt. That's just this length. I'm like

Bet I have it and they're like, I don't know. It's pretty special to you. I'm like

You should go look because like through the bin man. Yeah, like why why you need this I

I'm telling you that I have a selection like why are you naysaying this like go look first and inevitably they're like, oh

Yeah, there it is. I'm like, cool. Have a good one

Bring something back if you can if not, that's fine. So

And it's all like high quality

Most of it is high quality either OEM stuff that's been taken off of cars or it's, you know

Grade 10.9 or I forget what the other rating is but it's all like high quality

Hardware and I've got it, you know

Organized the way I do in sizes and like if I've got a bunch of them

I do lengths as well like these are like the short ones. These are the long ones

So I've got two bends for the m6s because they're tiny but I have a crap load of them

I think I've got two bends for the m8s for the same reason that I've got a bend for the m10s and m12s

But then like I've got the super fine threaded like flywheel bolts

That I just kept

Because again, like if you need them you need them and nothing else will do

Yeah, and you can't just go buy one at a loss or something, right? So like even when we go to the track now

Which by and large is without the Miata. I still bring my Miata spares

And our spare packers that we normally would because there's gonna be a Miata at the track

And if they need something like

I got you probably got it. I got you

So my the spares things. Oh, yeah two two spares things. I want to talk about one

The spare that I most needed at the track in my early days

was a bolt for the um

The simpson head and neck restraint that I had the tethers that fell out of my helmet

And I had to track down that bolt and it was actually a vendor a local vendor who had a booth there

Who's like

Here have one. That's that's an example of a good specialty

Specialty piece of hardware

Yeah, we don't bring those spares

yeah, and then um

When bryan defreeze and I built the splitter for his car

We very specifically went to

home depot

And looked through their metric

Hardware they have a crap metric hardware selection too. They have a crap metric hardware section

But I said we are going to build this with metric hardware from home depot and he's like we could do it with better stuff

and I'm like we could but

If something happens

We can stop at any home depot

on the one lap

And find this bolt and put it back in your car like we'll bring spares as well, but

It's true. We we don't want to put weird bolts in here

We don't want to put sae fasteners in here because the whole rest of your car is metric and that's stupid

That requires us to carry extra tools and say say it louder for the people in the back because my god

I have for that same stupid reason

I have two cubbies in one of my dewalt thing with like number six and number eight which are different

From m6 and m8, but it's also not an essay. It's

There's no reason why we should have this mini threads

No, and if you build something yourself

Build it with common bolt sizes that are already on your car. Just please make a choice, but like make the choice

Yeah, I'm always shocked when people have

SAE

Seat hardware like when they build seat mounts and they build it with like now

That's a five eighths inch bolt. Like why why would you do that? You had to buy a bolt

Why didn't you buy a metric bolt that already used the tools that you were using on your car? I

I may get corrected in this, but I think the only

non metric hardware

on my car

Is for the in plates for the wing because at the time johnny would only use

American sizes for his stupid in plates

And so I I don't know I don't I think he's since changed but like man, that's super annoying

and then the other is that

The rear ballast that's in my car is held in with half inch bolts

Because that what's that was mandated in the rules at the time

And like half inch is bigger than m12's

Okay, but it's you know smaller than an m14

And they're again like that

Size and kind of bolt I can walk into any auto zone

And go to their bolt and nut selection and find it

We that also like held on our exhaust for a long time was half inch bolts

Like exhaust bolt hardware

So it was kind of easy

Okay, yeah infuriating though. I get it still

But the good part is like

You know you put your lock washers on

Do a little lock tight and you tighten the crap out of it

And you never have to touch it ever again

Theoretically, I mean it's it's been years

Okay so far

So I tend to collect

Spares if I have a failure

Yes

So if I have like one time I had a throttle cable. I've had a single throttle cable fail on a motorcycle

Um, it happened to me in the woods and I was I was able to limp the bike back out just fine

But I'll tell you what every time I go racing on a motorcycle

I have a spare throttle cable like I'll never go racing without a throttle cable

Even though I check them at least once a year make sure in in the throttle cable on that dirt bike was terrible

It was old. It was frayed. I knew it was frayed

I still put the bike back together

It was a hundred percent my fault and I don't allow race bikes to be like that at all, but I still carry a throttle cable

I carry

Got so many people that race motorcycles with don't carry spare brake pads

Because seems weird brake brake pads on motorcycles tend to last quite a long time

Um, sure. They're just there's just not

You're just trying you're not stopping anything. That's that heavy

Right, you know like a really heavy motorcycle with a person on it is

You know full-sized bike is like 500 pounds you and the you on the bike is like 500 pounds

It's just not that big so they don't go through brakes that fast

but the number of people who like

Just

Don't have

spare brake pads blows my mind. It seems well to me

and

Again, like so many things are coming from the car world. I was like, why would you go to a track weekend without spare brake pads?

Why why would you do that? And they're like, well because I've never needed brake pads at a track weekend

As I hear you talking like you we could almost do one of those

four quadrant

diagrams to help you figure out

What to bring if you're willing to work on it at the track

So I think like on the bottom axis

you have like

The likelihood of you needing it is low

And okay farther right the likelihood of you needing it is high

So as you go to the right your likelihood of needing that thing increases

and then on the vertical

axis

you have

The car will be fine

If something happens to this thing and then as you go up the car becomes

unusable

If you don't fix it

So I think that access of like

catastrophic failure for the car

And like the likelihood of you needing it

So that top right

would be something like

You puncture a tire or like your hub brakes or like, you know something like that like if this goes

You're packing up

That's it

Where I'd like the very bottom left is something like

One of your tiny nuts that's holding your

custom made dash

falls off

It has six others

Nobody gives a shit like maybe don't maybe don't pack that like you can figure that out later sort of thing

So I think that would be an interesting

That kind of makes sense to me anyway prioritizing spares. Yeah, there you go

The spares quadrant the spares quadrant

I love that. I've always loved the the organization

that

high-level race teams have with their their spares and they sort of organize like

Things that we might need that we're likely to need are very readily accessible

Yes

And things that were less likely to need are that next layer back and then things like we we needed once three years ago

Like it's in the trailer

But we're not going to worry about that

my my favorite part of some endurance teams that like

Had their stuff together and had been through it before

Is they would have bins for like if this goes wrong you grab this bin

And not only does that bin have the parts that you need, but it has the tools that you need

and so

the number of redundant tools

Is definitely present but like when you're working with the team and sometimes those people

Aren't with you every weekend like you just go

Okay, our water pump died

Go grab the water pump box

And inside of that it's got a new gasket or gasket maker

And it's got a new water pump and probably a new belt

And it also has all the tools that you would need

To get there including extensions and things like that

That's it. Like that's the water pump box

That level of preparation is incredible and I love it. It's uh the other place you see that is in

Rally cars WRC little cars. They'll have

Corner boxes so you come into service in each corner of the car

Has its own toolbox. I like that it has everything needed to work on that corner of the car

and

I love it so much it makes me so happy because inevitably like you pick up a tool you go wander

You go do something you come back. You're like, where that tool?

Well, of course you you put it down when you were like wandering over there, but you wouldn't have to there

You just put it down where you are

And there's another one if you need it, right?

And if there's a fastener on that corner of the car the tool for it is there

Yeah, I think like the final boss of all of this would be

You remember the

Le Mans 24 hour document

Documentaries that they did about the Audi team for those two years in a row

Yes

Which were I kind of want to go back and watch those because those were so good

but

So not only did their team

Have all of this that we've talked about

But they would actually practice

Doing maintenance and emergency repairs like that's that's the final frontier

Is like they know

At some point this might happen and if it does

We are still in a race and we have to get it done as quickly and as efficiently as possible

And so not only did they design

Things that were easy to work on

That used common bolt and nut sizes

As many as were needed but no more

And then they would practice

And they were practice. I mean, I remember that I think they said their transmission was held in by four quick pins

And like yeah, get the fuck out. That's cool

That is cool. They're probably like massive military grade billet aluminum

Monstrosities, but like that's cool

Yeah

Well, when they got to the point where they were just using

Dry brakes on the brakes. Yes, and they would just swap the entire brake assembly out when they went to

To that rather than changing their like cooking sheets. They bring all this out on they put them next to whoever's working on it

So phenomenal. It's so cool

Yeah, I want to be better than I am

Again, like one of the cooler things I've put on my car that I liked is

It got this from a meal tab, but was the dry brake on the clutch line

because

The way that you have one of those

That's so cool

Because the way that the clutch master cylinder is you actually have to I

Have to actually unbolt the mount to be able to pivot it up to get the banjo all the way out

To be able to drop the transmission and like that step alone

It didn't take long

But like you would inevitably lose fluid and you have to undo that like that would it's a thing

That's like a 20 minute thing each time maybe 15

I just didn't want to do it. So he you know figured this out and I put on my car

And so if the transmission ever needs to come out you undo the dry brake

You disconnect the

Drive shaft you plug the drive shaft with this 3d printed thing

And then you unbolt the thing and you drop it out that like that's that

That's so pimp. Yeah

Yeah, the car's got cool shit on it. It does. Cool. I'm not trying to sell scouts by my car

Anyway, um, yeah, you have anything else

Uh, no, like I didn't even get into like the spares hoarding and what that really says about me

And like spares in the rest of your life like like how many spoons do you have in your drawer in your kitchen and why?

Uh, the only reason I have as many as I do is to try to like not run the dishwasher as much

steep all but those are

But those are spares, right? Like you need you're like I eat cereal. So I need more spoons than I need forks because

That's what i'm doing. All right story time real quick

So I use the same

I use a cup for my

cereal because

That's what I decided to do

So I use the same cup and spoon for my cereal on the same egg cooker and fork

every day

I just wash them by hand put them on the drying mat and like that's it

Until like it's time to run the dishwasher then I'll like throw them in for like good measure, but

Yeah

Like we we don't have a dishwasher. So everything gets washed by hand anyway, so

Yeah, there you go. Um, do you do you have one in Durango?

Do you have a dish? We do. Um, we used it once and it felt really weird. We actually

So when we first got there you're gonna test it

Are you gonna put like a full piece of lasagna in there or something just to see if it'll take care of it?

We put plates in without rinsing them and we're like, let's see what happens

But what we did for like the first four or five days we were there we didn't have

So we've got a two compartment sink

And what we always do is we wash dishes in one side and we have a dish rack in the other side

We didn't have a dish rack

Yep

And so what we did for like the first three four days we were there

We open up the dishwasher and we pulled out the the top rack those you dry we wash dishes

And then we set them in the dishwasher to dry. That's not how that's supposed to work

It worked great though

Incidentally, I have almost no spares at home for uh plates and forks and spoons right now because most of those live in Durango

And so it's weird if you live a life where your personal life has almost no spares

It feels very strange

And here we are

At track walking podcast uh on things uh link to the discord is in the show notes, which is where we hang out

Uh, best thing you can do for the show is like rate

comment share

You know interact

Really is it we do have a section in the

Uh the discord for questions and topic ideas as well, which uh, we're always up for

So and you can tell us what your spares are because i'm curious if we missed anything or what quadrant

Your different spares would be in like my my nerd brain is like

Kind of going nuts for this right now. I kind of want to draw it out

At what point you need to bring a spare windshield like the rally guys like of course me to spare windshield

That's something that might happen that

Yep, um

Yeah

spare materials that's another level like just fabrication materials

Right you bring a welder and some just steel bar because I mean maybe

maybe

All right, well that's going to do it for us this week. Uh, we'll be back next week with an interview

Uh for this week i'm scott

And i'm sith and we'll talk to you next week

0:00

60:09

229 - The Spares Quadrant

Mazda 2

transponder

daily driver

automatic transmission

Subaru

manual transmission

engine braking

torque converter

compression braking

brake lights

rear drum hubs

rear discs

Honda Accord

Acura TL

endurance racing

spare parts

coil

wrench

clutch

compression tester

consumables

engine oil

brake fluid

coolant

brake pads

Mazda MX-5 / Miata

alternator

tow vehicle

BMW M6

Le Mans 24 hour

Audi

About this episode

Original notes