AAH #758 - Do You Want to Learn How to Drive Fast?

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Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us today.

We're doing a little bit of a different kind of show.

Number one, Gary Vasselash, my co-host, is on vacation for this week and next week as well.

And so I decided that, oh, and I also should say this is not a big news week.

No, not anything earth-shattering has happened today.

So we're going to get into one of my passions, which is driving fast and racing.

And maybe some of you have thought about doing the same sort of thing.

I think the show will wet your appetite.

We've got Frank Schwartz here. He's got his own company.

We'll get into those details called Grass Paddock.

And we've got Eric and I'm going to butcher the name.

Gucassian.

That's the Eric G is the most common way I'm referring to.

Eric Gucassian.

Who's got a company called Trackalicious?

And we're going to get into the details of that as well.

And then Sean's here. Sean's joining the show.

Not just doing Auto Line Daily, but also on Auto Line After Hours.

And you got a message for anybody that's watching right now.

Yeah, yeah. I've got a computer sitting in front of myself right now.

And I'm watching the live chat, watching the show.

So if you guys have any questions about anything we talk about today,

please throw it in the comments.

And I'll do my best to ask it to the folks here.

So and you guys should jump in anytime,

even if you have to get your elbows out in the discussion.

But I don't think we're going to run out of things to talk about here.

Frank, why don't I kick it off this way and start with you?

You know, a lot of people in the audience have got some cool cars,

fun to drive cars.

You know, whether it's Mustangs or Camaros or Corvettes or Miatas

or Porsches or GR86s or BRZs.

And I mean, the list goes on and on that I'll bet

maybe they've had a chance to open it up here or there.

They found an empty on ramp or an off ramp.

But what would your advice be to people who have got a car

and have never really had the chance to test themselves or their car?

Well, I started a long time ago.

I'm on the way to the beach with my girlfriend and I passed a parking lot

and cars were driving really fast in the parking lot.

And I'm like, who are these hooligans and what are they doing?

So I stopped and there was a fence there

and I'm standing at the fence watching and a guy came over

and started talking to me and he said, hey, you know,

this is interesting to you. You can do it yourself.

I'm like, I can do this. This is legal.

And he said, absolutely. So that's how I found out about autocrossing.

I just stumbled into it and I autocrossed for many years.

So autocrossing is a great way to get started

because generally the events are designed so that the speeds are low.

So there's a very low risk opportunity for damaging your car

or hurting anybody or anything.

And the second thing is, from a time perspective,

autocrosses tend to be one-day events.

And if you live in a reasonable size metro area,

there's probably an autocross available so they're local.

So you can get up in the morning, you can drive,

you can do the autocross during the course of the day,

you drive home. Time commitment's very low.

The fund quotient is very, very high

and the cost is low, typically $20 to $40 entry fee

covers insurance and your day.

And you get to explore the limits of the car

in a place that somebody has designed it

to allow you to explore the limits of the car.

So they put slaloms in, they put some curves,

they put some slower stuff, some faster stuff.

So it's this really great way to kind of explore

what your car is and what it can do.

And also who you are as a driver and your ability.

And it's funny that you asked that question

because right now the national championship of solo

autocrossing is happening in...

Lincoln, Nebraska. Right now as we speak, they're racing.

That's correct. And I went last year to the,

you know, after all of these years

and even though I spent a lot of my time racing cars

on a track now, I went back and participated

in the national championship last year

and just had an absolute blast.

And the cool thing is anybody can do it.

And this is, I think, a critical thing

that we have to talk about in the auto industry

is when I started, you know, my car had 60 horsepower.

The idea of 300 horsepower, that was a Ferrari F40

or something like that.

You can get a minivan with 300 horsepower now.

So, you know, you talk about all of these exciting cars.

The reality is even a Honda Fit or a Mini Cooper

or some of the smaller cars, for God's sakes,

a Focus or a Fiesta from Ford are very capable cars.

And you can really learn a lot on how to drive

and explore those limits as well.

You don't need a Mustang.

Yeah, that's right.

What got you into it, Eric?

Oh, that's actually a really interesting story.

So we started off, I used to work for SRT

at Fiat Chrysler back then.

And just a bunch of people said,

hey, let's go do a track day.

I had never done one before,

never had the opportunity to do one before.

I didn't grow up in Michigan.

And then just turned into, yeah, let's do it.

And then couldn't really line up to our schedule.

So we just rented the track out ourselves.

So just a bunch of people who are super passionate about cars

went in and did a track day ourselves.

And that turned into the next year was friends of friends

and friends of friends of friends.

And then it eventually turned into track delicious,

where that's the goal is just try and fuel

passionate people who want to come hang out at the racetrack.

So what do you guys think?

And I guess I'll go to you, Frank.

Go karting is another great way to get started, right?

And what's to start with that?

Go karting.

What do you think?

I don't have any personal experience in go karting

other than I used to do an industry event.

That's how Eric and I met actually.

Awesome.

So I used to rent go kart facilities

and I would bring all the car designers

and engineers from the different car companies together

to have a competition.

So Ford versus GM because I'm up that age

where Trans Am Racing in the late 60s

and the Porsche 917 in those cars

have a huge impact on my life.

Just watching it on magazines

because it wasn't even really broadcast back then.

So we just brought people together

and it's amazing how the camaraderie

that comes up when you have a shared passion.

It's something we kind of mentioned earlier.

Motor sports is the entertainment business, right?

It's competition is Disney

and vacations and Harleys and boats

and people doing things with their car.

This is what they're choosing to do

with their time and their money

instead of or in addition to some of those other things.

So go karts are a great way to get started

and we're both on the road racing side

but I've done some circle track racing.

So even oval track racing, dirt tracks

and pavement track are just wonderful opportunities

for people to kind of test what your limits are

and what your capabilities are

and you don't have to be really good to enjoy it, right?

Because many years ago I was...

I was not a very good competitor.

I was so focused on my personal results

at the expense of the people that I was racing with

and I had one friend who never finished

more than mid-pack, his name's Charles

and I'm sitting with him one Saturday

at Waterford Hills, our local track

and I'm like, you know, I just won

and I'm not as happy as you are for finishing seventh.

How did that happen?

And he said, I have a very simple process.

If I come to the track and I load the car on

at the end of the weekend

and it looks like it did at the beginning of the weekend

if I had a meaningful battle with somebody

even if it's for just one lap on the track

even if I lose, it's just a battle

and I'm a little bit faster than I was last time.

That's all it takes to make me happy

and it made me realize I was going into

every weekend without a definition of success

or happiness.

So I'm a much happier person now

when I sit down at the beginning of the weekend

and say, why am I doing this, right?

Yeah, I share that because oftentimes

so we do a lot of sim racing as well

and oftentimes I'm at the end of the pack

because with wife, kids, responsibilities

and all these things where, you know, you're racing

some people who are single, don't have kids

so they have tens of hours a week

to practice for a race.

If I'm racing for last place

but I have someone I'm racing against

the thrill, the excitement, the adrenaline

is still there. It's immense.

Even in the virtual world

I mean I've been in a race at Hungarrowing

which is a very difficult track to pass at

and had someone behind me

who was probably half a second faster

20 minutes drenched in sweat

because a single mistake

means that you'll lose that position

and it was for 7th, 8th, some mid-pack

number that didn't really matter

but it was absolutely immense

and incredibly fun to do.

So talk a little bit about sim racing.

In fact, you brought a steering wheel in here

that I gotta believe is for a sim set.

Yeah, absolutely. This is actually the one that...

Show it to the camera, not to me.

You used at the track day.

So what we do is we set up

our sim rig at the track day

so people can experience

what it's like, the transition between

the sim world and the real world.

And describe that because you've got a big kind of semi-trailer.

Right, right. And that's not how it starts.

So sim racing really starts

with a pedal and wheel

wheels and pedals and that's

at a desk. That's where I started.

200 bucks

used, put it at my desk

computer rolly chair and that's how you get started.

And the

action and the intensity is still there

with that level of equipment.

Then you can go all the way up to $3,500

worth of equipment.

When you start getting invested into it.

So we have a bit of a lawn chair

with three monitors that people

can sit at and a heavier wheel set.

So this is a mid-tier

wheel and

base that powers the wheel.

And you really get to get that immersion

and the offset

of what we don't do as track days

which is the racing side of things.

So for what you lose

in track days which you can gain

racing doing what Frank does

or the circle track or the

karting that we'd spoken about earlier

and we do have some in Lansing

not too far from us. So that's great.

You get in the sim racing side

and you get that competition, you get that

camaraderie and you get to race against people

all over, literally all over

the world. Our weekly events

have

Canadians, Americans, Brazilians,

Mexicans, Argentinians

all the way down that time zone

and some wild Europeans

who stay up till 4 in the morning just to race

in our series. Which might be Max

for stopping as we found that.

Even he gets into sim racing.

You know, I did

an open track day with Trackalicious

and you had your sim racer there

and Frank already mentioned Waterford Hills

and our local road racing track

and what I liked was

I'd go out on the track

do a 20 minute session

in the car that I brought

and then I could jump into the sim chair

do the same sort of track

and try different lines

and there's a couple of

I think it's Big Bend on Waterford

which is very high speed right

and I'm a little bit

nervous of trying to do that

flat out on my own

but on the sim, no problem

and you can start to pick breaking points

you know, turn in points

apex points and the like

in the safety of the sim.

For 100 years, Salem's Elsinore Theatre

has been the stage for unforgettable nights

music that moves you

comedy that makes you laugh until it hurts

performances that spark conversation

The Elsinore has attracted

vast audiences bringing outstanding

live entertainment to the community

and created lifelong memories

Yours is next.

Step inside and make your own memory

in a theater as beautiful as the experience itself

see what's coming next

at ElsinoreTheatre.com

that's ElsinoreTheatre.com

Yeah, I love

the transition between sim racing

and track days and track days and sim racing

both ways.

I do get a lot of complaints from people who do

drive in real life going into sim racing

because they expect to be one for one

and that's not what it's there for

It's really a form of

muscle memory training

and fine tuning motor skills

and learning

repeating, learning focus

there's a lot of minute

detail skills that you start to develop

sim develop

driving anything. This is just an opportunity

to drive more

at a low cost. It's zero dollars

once invested into it and like I said

you could go from two three hundred dollars

all the way to the tens of thousands of dollars

and really around the

two to five thousand dollar mark

you're in a really really good setup

where you really don't need more

I mean some of North America's

fastest drivers

were in that two hundred dollars setup

and I've raced against them and they've destroyed me

and they showed me a picture right at the desk

the cheapest wheel that you could possibly buy

it's just a time commitment

and it's exactly that motor skill

that okay I have to learn

what to look at, what to memorize

what the key points are. Start

learning more

feedback from my wheel and my

hands and my visual sense

because I'm missing the g-forces

I'm missing maybe some of the sounds

and some of the feels and the smells

and then you go to the track

now you have all this additional information

it just makes you a better driver

it's phenomenal. It's funny

because you can take most people

who have ever driven a car

and put them in a car and they can

really drive without hitting anything the first time

it's almost impossible

in a SIM system to jump on it

your first time and not hit anything

because you're missing

these inputs so

you know they talk about blind

people getting a really

acute sense of hearing

and it occurred to me

very clearly that I'm racing

one time and my sound card went out

and I wrecked in the second corner

because the sound

was giving me an indication

if I'm turning the steering wheel too much

or not enough

or if I'm braking hard enough

and you don't think that it's that important

but you know your body

learns to pick those things up so

you know in the beginning of SIM

racing I dealt with a lot of people who said

I tried it and I hate it I can't do it

it's like riding a bike you actually

have to do it enough to get past

that scraped knees

and all of that kind of stuff

and people quit SIM racing

very early after they start

simply because

and when we talk about SIM racing

I'm going to draw

a gap between SIM racing

and games

so if you're on a PlayStation

that software is in there

and it's purposely helping you

not to wreck

when you're talking about a SIM system

it's supposed to try

and replicate how a car actually functions

when you're going to wreck it's going to let you wreck

and I'd like to add a bit of

converse to that

you get people who go into the SIM

with zero experience and it's very difficult

whereas going into a car

it's much easier

but when you get people who

do SIM racing at a reasonable level

and then go into a car at a track day

you can immediately feel it

I coach a lot of people

and not to say that I'm by any means

highly certified or as experienced as Frank

maybe some other people in the room

but

you immediately

get their sense of understanding

of what it takes to drive a car at speed

the lines

the breaking points, the memorization

all of that hand-eye coordination

that we were talking about earlier

and with regards to the gaming aspect

of it I mean

this thing here

you can practically snap this onto a race car

and Fnatic does make products

that are literally identical

that go from a SIM setup

snap it off, put it into a BMW race car

a GT3 full-fledged

couple $100,000 race car

if not millions and then go racing

yeah

just to finish up this thing on SIMs

Multimatic

which you guys probably know

they're one of the premier race car builders

in the world

their headquarters is

in two miles from the studio here

and they invited me over to try there

I don't know I think it's

16 axis

I mean it's got to be

easily a million dollar

simulator

it moves up, it moves down

it nose dives, it pulls back

it does all this stuff

and it wasn't quite

as real as

being in an actual car

so it's interesting to see

you're saying Alex that

Eric that even with

a very simple system

you can get the max out of a

SIM machine

it's really

it's building

a lot of skills

that take to be good at driving in real life

I find myself

after a SIM race

the next day

when I'm driving on the road

I'm scanning more often

I'm looking for

things that are happening around me

just because that's the mentality

of develop while I'm racing

because at any point in time

someone can call dive bombing

try to make a pass

so I'm more alert driving

just regular every day

because I'm doing my checks

while I do in SIM racing

so just a direct translation

of a singular skill

that gets developed

how any of this competition

driving or track day

driving or SIM driving

will make you a better driver

out on the regular road

you'll be a safer driver

you'll be a more confident driver

and you can definitely drive faster

Sean what do you think

you got questions or does the audience have questions

well I see one quickly

in here Hoffrun asked

do legacy auto companies fund any of this activity

not to my knowledge

I don't think they do

they should

on the SIM side you could probably say

they make money off of it

because they're licensing their cars

and their cars likeness and stuff like that

into the SIM side of it

and certainly

the old idea of

when on Sunday sell on Monday

still works to some level

you wouldn't see Cadillac

going into Formula 1 right now

if it wasn't important to their brand

getting to what Sean's talking about

you know if you buy

Ford Raptor

either Lightning or Ranger

there is

what do they call it there like

Commando driving school

I don't remember

I don't remember the exact name

but you got to get yourself out there

but if you bought one of their vehicles

they'll put you through the whole driving school

Ford used to do that with its ST

models as well

and learn how to autocross

and again you had to get yourself

to the track but Ford paid for everything else

Porsche

has the Porsche driving experience

down in Atlanta

so there is some OEM

involvement but they don't sponsor

any of the events or things

I think Toyota has some involvement

because they have the GR86 cup

so there is some link there between SIM racing

and real life events

you got to talk about

Mazda and when you talk about all of this

the Mazda cars

I'm not sure how involved they are

I know they have the vehicles in iRacing

but I'm not sure what the link is there

but I will say this is a perfect time

an open invitation to anyone who's interested

in doing that we're facilitating

on both sides to try and make that

transition happen right we're

actively looking for people in the automotive world

especially in the industry

to try and get more interest to do

what we're doing to help that

and really build early customers

I mean you're taking people from

the 14 to

20 year old

range and say hey look this is a

cool car

Mustang GT3 let's drive that

and they develop this emotional connection to it

down the road that

ends up being a sale

and I would add something if you remember

my events at M1 back in the day

so my day job

is I'm a consultant in the auto industry

so I've been working

for almost 40 years in the auto

industry and as a consultant

to automotive suppliers

and automotive OEMs for 15 years

but I've also been a racer

for about the same amount of time

and those worlds

were kind of separate but I've

always tried to find some way to bring

them together and

you know as we talked about earlier

when people buy a car

they fall mainly

into one of three categories they're buying a car

as a transportation appliance because they need it

you got to get to work they got to go places

they're buying it as a fashion

statement because they want other people

to look at them a certain way or they

feel good about themselves

when they get into something that they've worked hard to

afford or they buy a car as

entertainment and it's like a Venn Diagram

so all three of those circles intersect

to some level for every

person in the country that buys

either a new or used car

and

on the OEM

side of it and on the supplier side of it

the question is

how do you get people to experience that

so what I do for one of my clients

I rented a local facility

and I set it up for the day

where we could demonstrate

our products for anybody in the

auto industry who wanted to try out

our brakes or steering systems

or anything like that

and in an industry where as a supplier

I'm lucky if I get 15 minutes

with a vice president of purchasing

a year right

one of the OEM

vice presidents came at 11 o'clock

and left at 9 p.m.

so

for my client I had him there

for the entire day

so there are companies that understand

the benefits behind motorsports

more than just

sponsoring and contingency

and owning teams

and stuff like that

I've often said everything I learned about

business I learned from racing

because racing

the race starts at 10 not 10.02

not 10.04

if I'm not ready at 10 o'clock I don't

race right or I start

dead last or I start from the pits

or something like that

I got to motivate people without

having a lot of cash to motivate people

I can't do what I do by myself

people have to volunteer and help

we have some paid people as well

so there's these

commonalities between

the auto industry and the automotive

OEMs and the motorsport

entertainment side of it they can't

be broken they're

linked very clearly

and it's the unfortunate thing

that auto industry cycles

so there's times when motorsports

is like super important to the auto industry

and then there's times when

the economy may cause them

to cut it first because people don't

understand what it does to their brand image

or stuff like that so

one thing I would add

and this is probably just particular

to the Detroit area

but in autocross events

it's not unusual to see

a team of engineers from

General Motors a team of engineers

from Nissan a team

of engineers from Hyundai

because they've all got engineering

operations here but it's a way

I think for them

to have this

camaraderie this excitement

you know this

participation in

in competition

with their engineers and in fact what GM

does is on their Corvette

and their black wing Cadillacs

that they bring out to autocross

events they'll use it

as a recruiting tool

they'll literally say

www.gmengineering

.com

or something like that

because all of these companies

I don't care if it's a car company or a supplier

everyone's you know they're crying

to get the engineering talent that they want

new fresh young blood coming into it

and they're using motorsports

in this case is one way to do that

you know

Formula SAE is very very successful

in this environment

and it does have a lot of corporate sponsors

that does

Formula SAE and what the

Ottawa makers have

found is that

if they're

recruiting engineers

and one engineer happens to have

a higher grade point

than another

but the one with the lower grade point

participated in Formula SAE

that's the one that they're going to hire

man or woman

because they know here's somebody who's been

involved in a project that is a total

vehicle approach right it's design

engineering it's manufacturing

it's racing it's putting a business plan together

it's running a program

and so maybe that student

participating in Formula SAE

wasn't able to hit the books

as much and get a higher grade point

average but they know

here is somebody who knows how to work with their hands

and get things done

and I can absolutely attest to that being a graduate

of Formula SAE team

the

the way

to think that you get in the classes

is amazing right in the degree

and that's what you learn to do is learn to think

but the practical application

of that thinking in the SAE

is the first real chance that

you get for most right now

I didn't grow up in an automotive family

I didn't have a dad with a mechanic shop

or whatever it is right

Formula SAE was my first opportunity to

really understand what the practical

application is and I still

use that experience

from that program

to my job today

as an engineer yeah just a word of

advice for any of you engineering students

working out there

get involved in Formula SAE

I've had numerous

I'm talking numerous

automotive executives tell me

that they absolutely

give preference to

students that they are recruiting that participated

in Formula SAE

there's also I think Formula Baja

there's variations of it

solar, solar, electric

Formula E, electric version of it

all fantastic

I wanted to kind of jump back

into someone that's thinking about starting

into this and you know

just all the different

avenues that are available to them

to get in you know Frank you talked about

some of the parking lot racing kind of stuff

there's track stuff

I'm curious how trackalicious

and grass paddock kind of fits into that

like I'm thinking

like

do I want to get involved in

track day stuff first

is it good for someone that's just starting

out to go right into where they're racing

with other cars you know how does

that sort of fit into someone that wants

to get involved with it

if I could get started with it first

so basically this is the reason why I brought this

right so

there is an audio only version of this

right Eric right now is holding

a helmet a racing helmet

correct correct so

so the point

of this is that

really the only thing you need to get

into track days is a helmet

in your car and a driver's license

and

not always

not always okay because there are some

younger individuals who get

licensed in other ways

for racing let's say

and are able to get a pass

on that so because

Max Verstappen was 16

when he was in Formula 1

we're talking about that type of entry

in this country has

a long history with litigation

but in general

if you're 14 years old

you can drive a race car

on a racetrack

or a street car on a racetrack

somewhere in the country maybe not local

to you but there is some place

that offers it to 14 years

of age and there are

younger people who do it as well

matter of fact if you go

and rent a racetrack depending

on their insurance you can

probably put anybody you want to

in a car

but yeah and you don't

have to be you don't have to have

a Ferrari or a Porsche to get on track

right and that's that's the critical

point in that has to have some

sports ability to make it

relatively safe on track

you don't want big SUV's or anything

like that roll over risk and things like that

but my first time on track was with a Toyota

Camry called it the black

stallion it was quite impressive

actually but it was just

a base four cylinder Camry

and I had an absolute blast in it

right and then I upgraded to my SRT

4 and now I'm in a Miata but

there are the car

doesn't have to be

phenomenal and typically the ones

with the lesser cars

tend to have more fun because you're

more at the limit

from my experience I've been

racing for almost 40 years

on and off and

my race cars have 100 horsepower

yeah and

I'll argue with anybody who says they have more fun

doing it than I do

and I'm also curious about

you know

training do you always

recommend training and I'm curious how

you know trackalicious and

grass paddock fits into that sort of aspect

too for someone so I'll finish off

my bit and then hand it over to you

because I think you got a little bit more that goes into

your racing that you do

so we don't require

any experience whatsoever to get

onto the racetrack and that's the beauty

of it we'll help support

and John you've been a part of this right so

we set some stern

rules and responsibilities

of everybody that is all about safety

on the racetrack right and those

rules are all designed

to help people understand

safe passing zones so as

you get more and more novice

the passing zones become more

restricted to more straight

line areas and

we also have

instructors in our events

and go out and let people who are

new and I'm proud to say that

I think every single track day that we've had

we've had someone who's never been on a track

which is phenomenal that's what we're

here for I'm not a car company

I'm a people company right we

we're there to help people who are

passionate about cars enjoy

it just the same way we do so

we will go through

instructions at the start of the day to say

look we know this racetrack

here are some corners where you should be

careful and be conservative on your approach

to be safe throughout the day and

here are some corners where you know you could push a little

bit if you make a mistake you're not going

to damage your car or wreck it because there's runoff

room so with the car

the helmet and coming

and registering to whether it's

our track day or whoever else it is

that's how easy the

entry point is and I encourage

everybody out there it took me

a very very long time

to have the confidence to get on track

just because I was like oh I'm not a

race car driver it's intimidating it is

it is there's a lot of intimidation

but once you do it

it's not that bad

if I can control my ego at the gate

and not try to break any records

on the first day that I'm there

because I'm not equipped with the skills

all the details to really

push and push and push

it's an absolute blast

and I don't think there is a safer

environment to do something like that

hey look we're going to have to take

a quick commercial break

real quick about the helmet

because it's important

there are different kinds of helmets make sure

you have the right kind of helmet

and that's a snail sticker

every sanctioning body

every place that has an event has a different

rule so you got to make sure you pay

attention to what kind of helmet you have

and you can rent them you don't have to own

and we'll get into more of that

but like I said we got to take a quick commercial break

we're all going to swap out we got

a new person joining the panel here

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yeah yeah yeah no that's great

go ahead sit down I'm going to clip this on

alright we're back and as you can tell

when things are live you just

roll with the punches here

but while Alex gets

okay we got Alex Delatorre here

also with

Sean do you want this laptop

or

the Detroit region SCCA

right yep and

those Waterford Hills

racing the local track which these two gentlemen

are very familiar about it

yeah and we've been talking about

Waterford too but you know

again anybody that's interested

in becoming a better driver

maybe getting involved in racing and the like

all you got to do is get online and type

in either SCCA

or autocross

or track days

or trackalicious

and

so you're going to

you're going to find

what's locally available for you

but Frank you had some ideas

yeah so

there's all these different ways to get involved

in motorsport and

I've done most of them

we haven't talked about road rallies at all

that's another way to get

involved and I've done road rallies

with my kids so road rallies are events

where they have a route

which is either secret

or it's got some

maybe some math

it's got something associated

with it where you're going from point A

to point B legally on street

roads so you're not exceeding

local speed limits or anything like

that but it

might give you instructions like turn right

after the third sign that has

a T in it right or

it might be

turn right when there's a rock on the side of the road

or turn right at mile

12.2

so

I've done these with kids in my cars

and I've enjoyed the cars

and the act of driving

and that kind of thing

so there's all these different ways to get involved

and

all of them don't work for everybody

right so

competition is like super important

to me so I do

sprint racing mainly

because that allows me to go

to a racetrack and drive

at the limit of my ability for 30-45

minutes in a row without

a break

there are other people who like endurance racing

which means I'm going to have

four drivers in a car

we're going to run the car for 12 or 25 hours

so we don't want to run

at 110% every lap

because we'll destroy the car

or you have autocrossing

which is

going and driving your personal car

in a parking lot at

35-55 miles an hour maximum

so

track days I'm taking my personal car

and I'm driving on a racetrack

because I don't have the full safety

equipment

and I'm going to drive the car home

I'm not trying to drive at 110%

I'm

purposely going to drive at 85%

or 90%

so there's all these different ways to get involved

and the difference between them is

too happy so you got to ask yourself

those questions and if you don't know

try them all and then figure it out

right the other side

of it is there's a cost difference

right autocross is your personal

car 20 to 40 dollars

well it's gone up it's about

50 bucks now depending on where

you're at in this area

it's about 50 bucks

so

so even 50 dollars

40 to 50

a track day event is a couple

$100 on up depending on

$390 is where we start

and then

racing brings

a whole other level because you have to have a

car that's designed for

whatever group you're racing with

so you have that cost

it's not safe to drive it to the track

although some people do

because you've got a roll cage inside

and from a

safety point of view

high point harness without a Hans device

is actually unsafe

so you have all of these

things to consider but entry fee

is between 250 and 750

dollars and they run

for a weekend so now you've got

lodging and food for

the weekend to consider so

there's also a time commitment

I'm going to autocross I can drive my car

to the autocross they've got a

checklist of everything to make my car

safe so I've got to take everything loose out

of the car I'm going to put it on to the side

track day

event is pretty much similar

but at a track day

event now I'm going to be using my brakes

really really hard

lap after lap after lap

not every car does

well in that situation especially

older cars so you might

want to have the right kind of brake fluid

in the car depending on your car

and you'll learn I'm going

into turn one at 100 miles an hour

and I hit the brakes lap one

it feels great lap two it doesn't feel so great

lap three I'm like something's not

right I've boiled my brake fluid

right so

each of them have different levels

of time that you have to put into your vehicle

before you do the event as well

right so we've got a couple of

hour checklist of car that

we go through a car before we take it to a race track

I don't need to do that couple

of hours at an autocross

I should probably do

half an hour or an hour

before I go to a track day

so you know you got

single day events you got multi day events

and you've got the cost of the event so that's

that's the difference

the idea that you need to start

in one and step up to the rest of them

is something a lot of people think

I don't necessarily agree with

if you know which one

you have a passion for just go ahead and get started

when I started racing

track days weren't even a thing

you couldn't drive on a race track except

in a race car

there were no street cars on race tracks anywhere

in the country

so I didn't have a truck or trailer

so I jumped in my Fiesta

in North Carolina and I drove to

Summit Point West Virginia

and I did my first driver's school

and then I drove home in my race car

I was dumb and young

I didn't know any better

totally not safe the suspension

was so stiff 15 miles

I had to race track the car shut off

and I pulled over on the side of the interstate

I'm freaking out

because I just spent all this money

to go racing for the weekend

and my car broke

it was so stiff the spark plug

the ceramic

broke

on the spark plug

and I had to replace the spark plugs

to drive to the track

to finish my driver's school

hear that

another savvy driver rolling into

valveline instant oil change

no hassle with appointments

or dealer wait times

that's one smart bell

so Alex let's get you in on this

the whole premise of the show has been

we've got an audience out there

I know a lot of the people out there

have got some pretty cool cars

fun cars to drive

maybe have never really

seen what their car can do

maybe what they could do

what's your advice

well I actually wanted to jump in

on something that you were talking about

there's the individual that has the money

to get a vehicle and get behind

the wheel they're a little bit

further than the individual that

has yet no idea which

program to get into

and motorsports truly even though

it's an individual that's driving

it's much more of a team sport

whether it's autocross rallycross

you know road racing open track days

it's very much about volunteering

it's about being part of a team

and the person that helps you

change out the tires and fuel up the vehicle

I always like to tell people

when they want to go racing

or they want to go to an open track day

I compare it to wanting to be a rock star

you've never been to a concert hall

yet you want to be the headliner

so the first thing that I do

is I invite them out to one of our

race weekends one of our track days

to get familiar with

hey where's the restrooms at

how's the schedule work

how do you get to be a part of this

how do you get involved in the sport

and many times it begins with simply

volunteering and being

part of timing and scoring

helping people get on track

helping me suit up before

I get behind the wheel

because often times it's too intimidating

to go and try to get behind

the wheel of your brand new

V8 Corvette and doing so

so the first thing that I would do

is encourage people to go hang out

in one of these events be a volunteer

be a spectator

ask questions

go to the different types of events

and you will feel yourself out

what's the genre of concert that you want to go to

well same thing with the event

now if somebody

to answer your question

if somebody does have aionic vehicle

whether it's a track day

delicious waterford hills

great instructors

great people that are going to guide you along the way

scca.com

nasa.com whatever it may be

there's a lot of great organizations

that will guide you how to get

on track

as we speak there is

the national autocross

going on this weekend right now

the very best in the country are going

going at it

press on regardless rally

which is the road rally

world and nation's longest

road rally time speed distance

going on this weekend

up in gaylord michigan

two day event as well

250 miles per day

little bit more complex again no helmet needed

street legal cars

street legal roads

it's your flavor that you want to get into it

what's most important is get out there

and get into one

let's come to trackalicious

trackalicious is where

you can bring your car

and eric you will

have rented a track

and you get to do

quite a bit of driving so take it from there

describe like a typical day of going with trackalicious

yeah and i'll reinforce

what alex said i've volunteered for both frank

and at waterford hills that have done the flagging

school there so just

if you're passionate about it go and do it

right there are always people out

especially race teams will always take

an extra set in fact i'm going to jump in on

there are people who just

volunteer they never go out on the track

but they love the camaraderie

they just love the atmosphere

of the bus sorry i interrupted

no no absolutely

with regards to the track days

i'll contradict

alex a little bit in saying that

i will take that first time ca

driver all day

we we have a

checklist that we provide to all

of our customers to say hey

here's what you should do to make sure your car

is okay sometimes people even go

to garages that we have

that we could recommend to have

that more experience check

on your car to make sure that it's

fit and ready to go generally speaking

a c8 car that's pretty good

sometimes what you want to do is check your lug nuts

that's the big big thing right learn how

to use a torque wrench and that's probably the most

important thing that you could do because

maybe that shop mechanics

not paying attention as much as you'd like

them to beyond that

a lot of what you need to know

is spoken about in our drivers briefing

and and i know the waterford hills

does a fantastic job with ed at

the helm and doing that as

well we talk about as we spoke

before all the things that you need to know

with regards to the format right you

get five twenty minute sessions

at a minimum all of our

track say that again five twenty

minutes twenty and i gotta tell you

if you have not tracked before

twenty minutes is gonna

sound like all day long you cannot

believe you know how

when when you're brand new to it

twenty minutes is a lot so to get

five twenty minute sessions

you will be sore the next day

yeah right because generally

you're gonna be tense right so it's like

calisthenics right right but

secondly you're gonna use muscles you never

realize because you're gonna be trying to hold

yourself right in the car

while you're saying g i think you know

uh shoulders and neck muscles

yeah and we try

to coach out of that coach out of that

stiffness right because if you're stiff

then your reaction to the car stiff

and you want that looseness and flow

which again the both the gentlemen

across from me are way more experienced

than i am but i know a little bit about

it uh and and beyond

that it's it really

is that that's how as

as far as you have to go to get on track

and i'll offer that up

right now we actually as late as

it is in the season we have a waterford

hills track day coming up on september

13th a week and a half away which

you can still register for you could

you out there behind

the camera can literally go on

our website and be on track

in a week and a half and

have an amazing experience

we're going to

uh gingerman on september

27th 28th western michigan

right so if you're in the south haven area

or chicago area a lot of chicagoras

a lot of indy people come out to

gingerman and then gratin on

october 4th and 5th also west side

so grand rapids people come out

and have some fun so as late as

as it is in the season we still have

track days at all of our local

michigan tracks of our historic

tracks and when we're we'll eventually

get to m1 as well but

west side east side everybody's welcome

and it's as easy as going on there

rental helmets are available so you don't

even need that spring your car in a good

attitude and we'll make sure you're taken care of

and frank grasp attic your company

you operate what

everywhere east of the mississippi

right we're we're now we're kind of

national now so that's the goal is to be

national so when you start

looking at road racing the biggest

expense after the cost

of your car is the

travel right so unfortunately

the tracks aren't where the

people are when people call me

or ask me about

I want to get involved in road racing the first

thing I ask them is what's your zip code

because if you're unlucky enough to be

born in the wrong zip code

it is super expensive

so

there's a lot of companies that rent race cars

and they tend to have semi trailers

and trucks and

located in Ohio

Chicago in the major metro areas

and if you want to race at seabring in Florida

they'll load that car up

in a truck and they'll drive it down to seabring

and you will pay for that right

so my business model

is I've got cars in Florida

and I got cars in Georgia

and I've got partners in the northeast

and I've got cars in California

and we've got cars in Ohio and Michigan

and

next year we hope to be you know pacific

northwest and the central part of the

and you specialize in minis

currently we have a lot of minis

when I first started renting cars

I started renting cars

in the 90s at Waterford

when nobody rented cars

I rented Ford Fiesta

and

then I left for a while and

when I started renting I started renting Honda's

and

over time

now when you say Fiesta's

you're talking full blown race prep cars

full roll cages

full harnesses

probably a fuel cell too I'm guessing

not so much fuel cells anymore

so

I have a different opinion about all of that stuff

we used to require kill switches

and fuel cells in every race car

what's happened is the auto companies

are so safe with what they make now

that I would trust

a factory gas tank

on a new car

before I would trust my ability

to put a fuel cell in and not make any mistakes

in the process

and the same thing with the kill switch

and the ignition

cars are so safe now

the stock gas tank

is in front of the rear axle

and it's in

under the rear seat

in a very safe location

and if I'm going to put a fuel cell in a car

I'm probably putting it behind

the rear wheels which is less safe

even though it's a fuel cell

so yes

we rent fully prepped race cars today

we will start renting track day cars

probably next year as we're building them

because we're starting to find people

who don't know how to drive a manual transmission

so we're starting

this winter we'll be building our first

track automatic cars

for people to do track days

and stuff like this because

we had a couple of drivers this year

who wanted to rent and go racing

and they didn't know how to drive a manual

in 10 years ago it's fine

to ask a friend to borrow their car

but nowadays hardly anybody

has a manual transmission car for you to borrow

especially in the major

metropolitan areas

because while I have a manual transmission car

it was the most miserable thing

in my rush hour drive to and from work

where I was shifting years

150 times between home

and the office

so we rent race cars

we help people

go through the driver's school process

to get their competition license

so there's different ways to get

racing competition licenses in the country

there are organizations

that say you do six track days

and if we watch you and we think you were good

we'll let you do a race

where you wheel the wheel and you can pass anywhere

I run mostly with the SCCA

and their feeling is

you know what we think you need

to go to a school and learn about flags

and learn about all the workers

and learn about safety and learn about that process

before we let you race wheel the wheel

and then there's endurance racing

like lemons and some of the others

where you don't need anything

you show up with a driver's license

and they'll put you on a car

and you know you'll go out on track

at 120 miles an hour

next to people who are experienced

and you've never done it before

so there's

various ways to get involved

we

tend to spend the majority of our time

with SCCA for a lot of different reasons

first off the SCCA

has trained workers at the track

which a lot of sanctioning bodies have

volunteers great

but they're not trained they're not certified

SCCA

has a great insurance policy

where if you get hurt at an event

you're covered

including stepping in a pothole

and twisting your ankle

walking to your race car

a lot of sanctioning bodies

don't have any insurance

so if you have an accident

and you're on your own

and some of them even if you have an accident

and you hit a wall at a racetrack

you get a bill for fixing the wall at the racetrack

so you know that's different as well

so you know buyer beware do your research

and all of that

Alex if I want to rent

one of Frank's cars

and race it on a track

first I got to go through a driving school

and you guys were on a

fantastic driving school

at Waterford Hills

but talk about that in general

driving school and what it all entails

and what somebody might expect to go through

absolutely

so the driving school is

really there to teach you

about safety

and communication

and learning how to get yourself on track

and off track

typically there's some expectation

that you

will be able to

get on track

some expectation that you

can get your make your way around

on track you don't need to come with

driver skill but this is a

three day school one day classroom

learn the rules learn all

the different sanctioning

ideals you have to work with

and then it's actually about

12 to 16 sessions

on track

20 plus sessions over a two day

period and the great thing about

race car rental teams like Frank's

is you don't have to worry about

fixing the car

working on the car you can

truly focus on

what am I learning at school right

I can focus on myself as a driver

I can focus on exactly

what my colleagues are doing on track

as well so

for $495

not including the helmet the gear

and the rental of a vehicle

once you're done with this

three day school you come out of there

with a novice permit

you complete three race weekends

you come out with a full competition

license which everywhere

from the Pacific Northwest down

to Miami you can show up

with your race car or call

up a race car rental team

and drive in any of these historic

tracks so once you

have become licensed

you can show up just about anywhere

and go into a little bit more detail because

what I love what you guys do is not just

teach the

fundamentals of driving fast

you also do some simulation

racing as part of the school

exactly so and I don't mean

sim racing I mean out on the track

simulating an actual race

we simulate scenarios

for individuals

you don't want to experience your first

red flag which means

stop where you are because

we need to take care of something on track

so we have

all the flag simulations

what if there's a small emergency on course

to a full blown emergency on course

what happens if

the ambulance or the record needs

to be on course while the drivers

are out there we practice

starts right we practice

finishing we practice

driving around the track side by

side through multiple laps

so you become familiar with what's

like to be close to another vehicle

while it's on track so the

we do have a very much a stair

step approach where we practice

hey start slow

feel the tires underneath you

to we culminate it at the

very end to a full blown simulation

race and everything

we do in between so

you want to practice the scenarios

before you're actually

out there by yourself

in a real race with veterans

as well so we've

been talking about all these different ways that anybody

can get involved in racing let's talk a little

bit about driving

if you had to give anybody advice

Alex what would

be some of the key things keep

in mind when you're really

starting to push yourself

to the limits and your car to the limits

absolutely

you know I'm going to boil it down to three things

number one you're entering into a relationship

with the machine right and how you

ask it to do something is exactly how

it's going to answer you so you

have to be kind in a request

because if you're violent the machine

will respond equally as

violently number two

performance and racing driving is a very

concentration intensive sport

so very much like reading

your brain will tire just as

much as your body and once you start

making mistakes and missing your

brake markers or your apex markers

you need to come inside

and rest right you need to leave

your brain the opportunity

to just relax you may

have the gusto of wanting to be out there

for two hours but that's

going to be too much for you so go out

there and learn how to drive in little

bites do not

go out there and make the same mistake

over and over again because you're developing

a bad habit and bad habits are

hard and long to break

most importantly you drive with your eyes

so always look as far ahead

as you possibly can it's like

trying to walk through a room in the dark

you don't want to have a myoptic vision

you want to focus on what's coming

up so look as far down the

road as you possibly can

similar to being out on the road

be aware of your surroundings

Frank what advice would you give

so girlfriend and I were driving

somewhere the other day and she was

driving and I was a passenger

and I'm noticing things

that I'd never noticed before

right and I think we can all relate

to that and if you

can think about the difference when you

drive somewhere and you're a passenger

how much you notice when you

drive a car quickly on a track

especially when you're racing when

there's other cars also driving quickly

you develop

another level of awareness

of everything that's happening around

you in terms of

cars potentially

pulling out in front of you I've

avoided more than one accident in my life

because the other thing

racing teaches you is

the average driver thinks first with

the brake

the racer thinks first with the steering wheel

it's easier to

avoid an accident by driving around

it than it is taking a chance

that I'm going to stop

in time before I hit that person

right so this is

really the biggest thing that I've picked up

over my time

driving race cars and auto crossing

and all the other things that I've done

the thing that people have given me feedback

I am probably

three accidents less

than I would have had

if I'd never been racing

right so that's maybe once

every 20 years I

avoid a serious major accident

because of my racing background

and it's not racing skill

it's not even like the best driver

will avoid that accident and an average

driver wasn't even an average

racer would have avoided the same accident

because they think differently

right they're aware

and they think with the steering wheel

and not with the brake pedal

Eric what I preach

at our track days is mental budget

right I ask people

to pick one or two things

to work on every time they

go out of the session and not try to do

too much when you're new to

a racetrack there's a lot of new

sensations thoughts

things that you're looking at and while your brain

is developing that baseline

need of what it is that goes on track

I don't think about breathing that's

not a part of my mental budget

because I've been doing it for a long time

but there are other things that and those

type of things develop as you get

onto the racetrack so first thing

I tell people if you're in a manual car

don't shift at Waterford you don't need

to add that complexity

so that you could use what capacity you

have left for the other

higher level things that you need

so mental budget is what I preach

pick simple things

pick few things every time you go out

to focus on so

you get really good at it not make those mistakes

because you're trying to do too much

and that really helps you hone in

on improving little by little

and I wanted to correct something I had said earlier

I said that the entry point for

our track days is $195

and that is completely a big lie

because recently what we started doing is

we added a bidding system

so if our track days aren't full

you could bid as little as $1

and get into our and people

have done that we've had people who've

come into our track days at $1

and it isn't because

that's great for me because that's a big loss

for us from a business perspective

but it gets people to the track

if the money is the problem

we'll take that out of the equation as well

because once you come to our track day once

you'll understand that the value that you get

is immense for even the $195

or the $200 or $250 whatever it is

but $1 is the entry point

and we make it family friendly

at the Waterford Hills event that we have

we're going to have this sim rig out there

we are actually setting up a power wheels

track because I have 4 kids

and the oldest one is 5

so I'm setting up a power wheels course

we have 3 of them ourselves

and we invite everybody with families

to bring their power wheels out

so that the kids can go out and race themselves

and use the amazing kids facility

at the Waterford Hills which is fantastic

so make it a family event

don't use my wife doesn't want me to go

as an excuse or my kids

and I have 4 kids

very few people have more kids than I do

so we're taking away all the excuses

and trying to facilitate anything

that we can to have people out on the track

that's awesome, yeah

if I could add something to what you're talking about

the mental side of it

the skill that's required

to do this at a very high level

let's just take one corner

as an example

I'm going to drive down a straight away

and I'm going to turn right 90 degrees

where do I start to break

how hard do I break

when do I stop to break

when do I start turning the steering wheel for the corner

what do I aim for once I start turning the steering wheel

when do

how far out of the track do I go

at the exit of the corner

when do I start to turn the steering wheel straight

when do I start to accelerate

that's 8 decisions for corner

and a track can have 15 corners

so if you're trying to go out

and do a better lap every time you go out

even I'm not

capable after 40 years

of improving like that

I have to take it corner by corner

I'm going to try and do turn 1 better

and then once I do turn 1 better

I'm going to do turn 2 better

and so on as I'm trying to learn

that's why all these sessions are great

people talk about endurance racing

I get 2 hours in the car

I'm going to get so much better in 2 hours

in the car

well actually I'd rather do 5 20 minute

sessions because

you know the mind can't

lock

the changes down

if you don't have a moment

of quiet

in order to kind of absorb it

so if I go out

I'm going to try 3 new things

my first session

I'm going to try 3 new things

my second session I'll be faster

at the end of 5 20 minute sessions

than a guy who does 2 hours in straight

in a row

motor sports is like baseball

a game of inches

a game of tens of seconds

which you are striving to improve

by literally tens

hundreds possibly thousands of seconds

to break a track record

to beat somebody else out on

and it's fun to watch humans

obsess over

such kind of microscopic increments

or your personal best

absolutely how do I

get past this mental block

that I know somebody

is going 2 seconds faster than I am on track

how do I gain 1 second

what do I have to do

you've got to strive and have conversations

with people and get the practice

in there so that you can improve yourself

if you can go half a mile

an hour faster in every corner

it knocks over a second off your lap time

and by the way

you talked about Big Bend at Waterford

this fast flat out corner

with a wall on the outside

I had a big spin there

my last time at Waterford

why because I was driving

a new car to me

that is this much wider

and I dropped the rear tire off

at the entrance of the turn

telling me that when I'm in my normal car

I'm at the edge of the pavement

and when I drove a car that's

2 inches wider

I spun

because the tire went off the edge of the track

look unfortunately

we're going to have to wrap this up

but I hope you out in the audience

maybe got the bug to go out

and try go to Trackalicious

look for a grass paddock

come out to Waterford

or your local SCCA

or even if you're out on the street

and you're just driving

in normal everyday traffic

listen to what these guys have talked about

look up ahead

get the big picture

don't be focusing on the car in front of you

or maybe the car in front of that

be looking a half mile down the road

if you're on a track

be looking 2 or 3 corners ahead

or as many corners as you possibly can

take a late apex

and relax

enjoy it

and as Eric said

and Frank has touched on too

a step at a time

get good at one thing

then move on to the next one

but anyway I want to thank all three of you for having come on

as you can tell

I'm into this sort of thing

and I hope we whetted your appetite

thanks for watching

thank you

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