Driven Radio Show #326: Chuck Sundstrom of Radford Racing School

Welcome to Driven Radio Show, your home for car talk covering the latest news to the greatest

views on the biggest names in performance, sports, and just plain cool driving machines.

Let's rev up the conversation.

Time for Driven Radio Show.

Hail you gear heads and car fiends, welcome to Driven Radio Show, your weekly automotive

happy hour.

I am Brett Hatfield, here with my co-host and engineer extraordinaire, Mr. Mark Groves.

That's me.

Coming to you from Driven Radio Show, where the sun finally came out today after five

days of steady rain, gray, ugly, cold.

When it came out today, I figured people were going to come out of their house and throw

rocks at it.

The hell's that thing in the sky?

It burns us.

Yeah, no kidding.

It's warm.

I was glad to see the sun today.

I don't handle cold, crappy weather well.

And we've had too much of it lately and too early.

Too early.

Yeah, it did kind of come on strong.

Yeah, it did.

It just, you know, the switch flipped and then boom, there we were.

Well, we got a couple of days of nice weather, going to be nice tomorrow for Halloween.

Thank you.

Oh, yeah.

The best day all year.

It's just awesome.

You saw how Nuts Rhonda's gone upstairs because...

Oh my God, yeah.

And there's more now.

Yeah.

There's more.

She's very crude.

Well, she made more crap this last year.

Yeah, and you know what?

It looks great.

It does.

It looks awesome.

Hey, like I always say, Hallmark sends her hate mail.

The girl's really, really gifted and talented and creative and she makes great stuff.

But here's the thing.

She, a lot of stuff that she makes and you've seen her take lots of stuff from your childhood.

You know, she's gone through all of the, all the Weeblow stuff and the barns and the houses

and the He-Man castle and all the other crap and she takes all the stuff from your childhood

and then she makes it creepy and she does a really great job, paints everything black

and everything's got demons and goblins and ghouls and gremlins hanging off of it and

flashing lights and strobing stuff.

If you had a problem, you know, if you had a problem with seizures, probably stay out

of our house.

Yeah.

But she makes all the really terrific Halloween stuff and then today we had to go to Costco

and load up on Halloween candy.

Now, first things first, since 2020, the year of suck, everything has gotten to be so stinking

expensive.

I can't even believe it.

Yeah, it's stupid.

And we're there.

We're at Costco.

You got the big cart and she's just throwing big ass bags of candy into it and I'm thinking,

oh man, this is going to be like 75 bucks or so and we get up to the checkout and it

was almost $200.

Oh my God.

Almost $200 and that's because we live in a neighborhood where I have talked about this

before and I'm not kidding even a little, we'll have 250 or 300 kids trick or treat

our house.

That's a lot.

Tomorrow is an absolute zoo parade and we've discussed before the guy next door temporarily

frames in a massive haunted house in a three car garage and it's good.

It's a pretty good haunted house.

So of course, all the kids are lined up in his driveway and they stack up and wind up

in our driveway.

So we get trick or treated a lot.

People are waiting to get into his haunted house, trick or treat our house.

You should be selling beers.

Well, you know, what mom and dad's trick or treat one year early in the other house,

we gave we gave beer out to parents and to introduce ourselves to the neighborhood.

And you know, then the neighbors didn't talk to us.

Beer and tacos, baby.

Well, it wasn't beer and tacos, it was beer and something else.

Oh, there you go.

It may have may well, let's not discuss that.

Just moving right along.

We'll get canceled anyway.

They're going to be wondering now we're going to get an email on that.

It's Brett at driven radio show dot com.

If you must know at driven radio show dot com.

This year along with candy, there's something weird.

I need this explained to me.

If you know what it is, tell me what the hell kids want potatoes.

I saw some weird meme thing go across that when I was doom scrolling

some night recently, I don't know if they're baked potatoes

or if they're just potatoes.

It's being excited about getting excited about getting a potato instead of candy.

And I don't get it.

So while Rhonda is throwing all these bags of candy in the cart,

she wheels over by the veggies and she throws in three bags of potatoes.

And I'm looking at her going, what are you making me what mashed potatoes

to go with the candy?

She says, no, kids take them instead of candy.

And I saw something online about I looked it up when I got home, but I don't get why.

Yeah, that would be the interesting thing.

Is it is it just being ironic?

Why is that a thing?

That is the weirdest thing.

That's like that's weirder than the gal who used to give out dimes down the street.

You remember running into those when you're a little kid, somebody gave out

knuckles of dimes. Yeah.

It was so strange.

It's someone giving out change.

And that's what you work in the bank.

Don't want to go to the store.

I'm just tired.

Yeah, I just tired.

I give up.

Screw it.

Here's some lint.

Here's some change.

Here's a dust bunny.

Here's some office supplies.

There's a handful of paper clips to be guide for two weeks ago.

Knock yourself out, kid.

Well, this is worse than like the first year we were in this house.

Everybody in the neighborhood warned us.

How many kids are going to trick or treat the house?

I'm like, yeah, whatever.

And we got our standard issue quantity of candy.

And it was gone by seven o'clock.

And of course, kids want to egg our house and we're going through the pantry trail.

OK, well, fine.

Let's give them a microwave popcorn and let's give them Swiss Miss and, you know,

crap like that.

The potato thing's real and roundabout potato apparently we're going to try to give them out.

Now, if they want baked potatoes and they get raw, they're going to be real disappointed.

They're going to be real this way real fast.

And if you're giving out baked potatoes, you better give out some butter and sour cream.

Just saying.

It's just what I'm thinking about.

OK, real quick, let's get back to car crap.

I know you're talking to the guy about the 59 T bird.

Yeah, yeah, I've got one located.

So we're starting to chat a little bit about what condition it's in, how it's running, etc.

I don't know if the pictures are accurate.

Sorry to interrupt.

But if you're talking to that guy and the pictures are as accurate as they look, pull the trigger.

Yeah, that's it.

It's a pretty good looking car.

It really is. And it fits.

And it does.

And if the miles that he says are accurate, it's it's halfway to 100.

It hasn't rolled.

It's like 59, 59 K. No kidding.

That's why it looks so good.

Holy crap. Yeah.

And it's 352 all original.

You know, it doesn't have any of the the higher end parts.

So it's still manual crank windows.

You've got drums all the way around the way column thing.

You know, I didn't ask.

I find it unlikely because I think it's really a base model 59 T bird.

But was the swing way column or bullet bird stuff?

I think so. OK, this is a box bird.

Still super clean.

Yeah, it looked like it. Sure it did.

Crank windows is nothing new to either of us.

I'm used to that.

And in a way, that's actually kind of nice because then you run into less electrical

problems and trying to find motors for those efforts.

Well, not on impossible.

Fewer, fewer opportunities for crappy.

But it does have a four barrel and the it's got a modern air cleaner on it.

So when that was one things asked, I was like, do you still have the original one?

Yes. OK, the original one had kind of a cork backstop looking thing to it.

I think so. Yeah, it was it's a weird looking air cleaner.

Not, you know, not out of no stock stock on the T birds was a little odd.

Yeah. Yeah, it's cool, though.

And I'm like, OK, because I I got to, you know, be willing to run down there

and take a peek at it.

I won't I won't buy it without looking at it. OK.

And this time I I'm not going to try to work somebody over and get them

into my price range before I come to look at it.

I figure if I go down and it's like, yep, then make the offer there.

Yeah, get her done there.

Yeah. And we've talked about this kind of fit your budget.

Yeah, I this yeah, I can I can get that one in.

OK, and it fits in the garage and it's a good looking car.

And I've given it my blessing, which is all I needed.

I'll leave them.

I'll put on my Pope miter and do one of these numbers.

Oh, man, it's a swing, a swing of smoke.

So speaking of budgets and things that fit into them, I saw something today.

Well, not today. It's been the last week online. Yeah.

I've been watching. I've been bidding.

I I missed the end of the stupid.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

I mean, damn it. Yeah, yeah.

But but it did not sell.

Oh, oh, the top bid was in a price that I consider very, very reasonable.

What is it?

Is a nineteen eighty eight.

I know you're shock Corvette.

Oh, Callaway twin turbo with the Corvette

hardtop that really, really makes a difference in how stiff those cars are

with sixteen thousand miles on it.

Oh, my God.

And the top bid was in the mid twenties.

Yeah, they made one hundred twenty five of them that year.

It is a supremely rare option.

It was a factory opera, at least a dealer off

not dealer offered factory offered option.

They would the Corvette would come out.

It was RPO code B2K only on Callaway twin turbos.

It was built at Bowling Green, shipped to Old Lime, Connecticut.

Callaway did the twin turbo conversion on it.

Different block forged internals, all kinds of different stuff.

Beefed up the transmission and then sent it back in nineteen eighty eight.

It was a twenty six thousand dollar option on a thirty five thousand dollar car.

Oh, my God.

That option now would be sixty eight grand.

Jesus Christ.

Yes.

Golly, gosh.

Yeah.

Gee, Jebus Chrysler.

Jebus Chrysler, you got it.

It almost doubled the price of the car.

And the high bid today cost less than the option did in nineteen eighty eight.

Wow.

So I was looking at that and going and it again, they made one hundred twenty five

of them and only a sixteen thousand miles on it.

It shows very minimal where the paints in really great shape that ran in nineteen

eighty eight. Listen to the numbers here.

Four point four second zero to sixty ran the quarter in twelve nine,

which is going to seem slow next to what our guest tonight is going to discuss.

But at that time, extraordinarily fast when stock Corvettes,

it put out three hundred eighty two horsepower and five hundred sixty two

pound feet of torque when a stock Corvette put out two hundred forty

horsepower, ran a six flat zero.

Oh, God.

And a fourteen three quarter.

Wow.

So OK, serious, serious performance in a beautiful car.

I was going to say, and it's pretty.

And it's still available as a time of recording.

And I've got a couple of days before this post, so none of you will beat me to the punch.

And that's what I was bidding on today.

And I missed the end of the auction because I was out buying candy.

God damn it.

The other thing that right before we came downstairs also and bring a trailer.

Somebody sent me a post about a needy Harley I was bidding on.

I know you're shocked.

I know you're surprised.

Now you've got that big heart that just wants to help.

Yeah, well, like I said before, I don't want to write every Harley,

but I want to fix every Harley.

It's a nineteen ninety.

It's over one exit.

Oh, it's not far from home.

I'm skipping a jump.

Yeah, it's about 15 minutes away.

And apparently I was bidding on it.

I was one. I was one of the high bidders.

I was not the high bidder.

It the the sale didn't go through.

The guy didn't complete the high bidder didn't complete the sale.

And they sent me a note asking me if I was still interested and I might be.

I'd like to go get a look at it.

I want to see what it looks like.

You know, I gave my last Harley my last heritage away.

I thought I was out of the heritage business here.

And then this thing popped up and Jesus Christ is right.

It really looks really looks right.

But he didn't post a couple of the pictures that I asked for about the paint condition.

And I want to see some things on that before I pull the trigger because the first,

you know, like every one of those I get first thing I do is swap out the tires

and go through and do a full service.

And, you know, I put a grand or two into them.

But it might be worth it on the backside.

I don't think this one had too many miles.

And I'm going based off memory.

It's been a couple of weeks since I saw it. Right.

But yeah, I might be doing stupid with zeros on the back again.

Look, it's got wheels on it.

So ready.

Yeah, he was pretty in it.

I should buy three.

Let's take a break for some commercials about cool car people stuff driven radio show will be right back.

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And now back to more Driven Radio Show.

Alrighty, well, our guest this week is Chuck Sunstrom of Radford Racing School, a Michigan

native.

Chuck is well-known and respected as a motorsports veteran and drag racing instructor.

Over the past two decades, he has pursued his drag racing passion as a full-time driver,

mechanic, track manager, and race director at Firebird International Raceway and Spokane

County Raceway.

Chuck also led an events business and security company creating high-profile events at automotive

venues.

In December of 2023, Chuck was named general manager of Radford Racing School, and in

January of last year, he began managing the Radford Racing School team and operations

on the Seven Track campus.

Seven tracks.

Wow, Chuck.

Welcome back to Driven Radio.

Thank you.

Good to be back.

Good to see you guys.

You know, the first thing I'm going to say, well, I'd almost say a year ago when we talked,

and both of you were excited to come out to school and try with us, and I still haven't

seen you.

So I'm just going to throw that out there.

You know, and I'm excited to come out there and drive with you, and I was going to point

out that we haven't been out there yet, so.

Make it all fair and your sons of bitches don't take it.

Well, I'm going to accept this as an open invitation.

You guys are dead to me.

I got it.

Okay.

In fact, I was talking to my wife about this interview earlier today, and I told her what

I really want to do is I want to come out and take the personal protection driving course,

the one that you offer to bodyguards and people who do personal protection.

Is that available?

You know, you mentioned that, and, you know, that's kind of a secret thing.

I mean, we can give you the course, but then we have to kill you, so, you know, I mean.

That's okay.

I've been dead inside for years.

Yeah, we can give you some of that special training.

We do a lot of, you know, we do every type of training, and that is pretty exciting.

I mean, we do some tactical driving and.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

I want to do that.

That sounds cool.

I want to do that.

It's a lot of fun.

I want to do that.

That sounds really cool.

It is pretty cool.

I want to be able to take, you know, a 24 foot limousine and just spin it, whip it, you

know.

Yeah, just whip it around and totally Rockford file it.

I want to see you do it.

Yeah.

We don't have any limousines in our fleet, but I bet we can teach you how to do it.

That would be awesome.

That would be kind of exciting.

I want to see how to do that, man.

That'd be fun.

Okay.

For those who missed your previous appearance here, please tell us a bit about Radford Racing

School.

Where is it?

How long has Radford been in business?

What other kinds of classes do you offer aside from the ones we've just mentioned?

And tell us about the vehicles you drive, and when you do, you're going to have to give

Mark a moment because he's.

I'm going to get a little missed.

Yeah, he's going to get all excited.

Yeah.

Radford Racing School founded in 1968 by Bob Andron.

It's a, it's really the only purpose built driving school in the world.

It really is.

I mean, every other type of driving school that there is out there is not at a purpose

built facility.

They travel around different locations, do different things, more of an experience type

program.

I mean, we're well known for our driver training around the world and have been for a really

long time.

You know, the facility was built in Phoenix at the campus of Firebird Raceway in 1991.

It's been a staple of not only the community there, but worldwide in the motor sports community.

We do every type of driver training, you know, from team courses, defensive driving courses,

high performance driving courses, road racing, advanced road racing.

And we teach Formula drivers, NASCAR drivers, drag racing, anything you can think of.

And we, you know, we always like to say at the school, we say, if you drive a car, we

have something to teach you.

Oh, cool.

I might have to bring a 24 year old down there who is a bit green.

She's just now getting her driver's license.

God, does that seem common in the younger generation?

It is.

It really is.

You know, it's, it's been crazy.

I think the last six, seven, eight years, we've seen a trend where, you know, my kids,

when they were younger, they were counting down the days on the calendar, right, till

they got their permit.

Yeah.

And it's changed.

I mean, a number of young adults and teens nowadays that don't drive until they're in

their mid to late twenties is astronomical.

It's just the world has changed a lot, but we do see a lot of young drivers coming in

and new drivers.

And it's, you know, what we did is we had looked at our teen program and, you know, some

of the stuff we're talking about today is the new programs we offer.

And what we were seeing traditionally for years is a lot of our long term clients that

had come through classes, dads, grandparents, they were bringing their teens in, and they'd

come and take a high performance driving course and put their teens in a teen course

so they could be there at the same time.

So that's why we kind of changed around.

We came up with a new course called defensive driving and that's a family course.

Oh, good.

So you can take the whole family, you know, as long as everybody has a driver's license

or a learner's permit and they've had some driving experience, we can put everybody

in together and teach at your learning level and have everybody experience the same thing.

You know, all of our courses have a lot of the safety driving with anti-lock brake techniques

and, you know, throttle control, weight transfer, accident avoidance programs, different things

like that.

But they all also have a real fun performance driving, obviously, in our really cool cars

that we teach them in.

Okay.

Now, we've gotten to that point.

I know that was a little teaser.

No, no.

And you did it beautifully.

But what vehicles do you drive and Mark's going to ask for you to go really slowly?

You know, we're the official driving school of Dodge, our performance driving school.

Nice.

You know, we've been traditionally the official high performance driving school of Dodge SRT

and, you know, we basically change it just over to Dodge in general because we're doing

so many different things with Dodge with all their new vehicles are coming out.

We have a total of just around 90 Dodge vehicles on our property.

Like a lord.

We have a lot of things from 4D Hellcats.

We have 7 Dodge Demon 170s.

We have 5 2018 Dodge Demons.

We have Red Eyes, Hellcat Challengers, Jail Breaks, any performance Dodge you can think

of, we have.

Yeah.

Mark wants to know which one's got craggers on it.

15-year-old teen.

Yeah.

Your 15, 16-year-old teen, they come out to a teen driving program.

They're doing it in a 500 horsepower Hellcat.

That's not half bad.

It's a little better than what I learned in, but yeah, a dog will hunt.

You know, because I was thinking you would have a bunch of, you know, old Dodge Neons

out there just in case for the really young teen drivers.

Now, you know, we do have some old beater cars for our tactical driving for training

and how to go through a roadblock.

So that's probably what we'll start you out in.

Wow.

Nice.

Wait a sec.

I'm about doing that villa, man.

I don't have a whole lot holding me down the next couple of weeks.

Let's get on a plane.

You don't come out and visit us.

Exactly.

We're kidding, man.

We're going to have to get down there.

It's our bad.

All right.

So I think you've kind of covered what makes Radford different from other schools.

You also have recently announced several cool new driving experiences.

Tell us what you got and give us a little bit to chew on on each one of them.

You know, what we did is we took a hard look at what we've been doing traditionally since

the beginning of driving, right?

I mean, we have a format and we have a program put into place that is able to teach everybody,

regardless of what you're going to do driving.

You know, you can use a lot of the same techniques, weight transfer, braking, all those different

things, car control, transfer from safety, driving into driving, any type of race car.

The problem we were having was what we were promoting, what we were selling.

We've been selling race car classes and race performance driving historically forever

since we started as a school.

And, you know, our thought process on that is, you look, how many people look up for

a high performance driving course or an advanced road race course or a GTA road racing course?

And with this nice description, if you're a car guy and you're a racer, you'll understand that.

Nowadays, people just want to drive something cool.

They want to drive fast.

And, you know, they watch TV or they've seen a movie or they see cars going on the street.

I want to drive one of those and us being able to have something else to promote to

get them in the door and teach them what we do and feel good about the fact that we not

only brought them in and have shown them a really good time in these cars.

They've had a really fun time.

We've also taught them a lot of safety techniques that they can use every day.

So what we did is we came out, we took some of our courses that we've been doing forever.

We modified them a little bit and we turned them into experiences.

So we've come out with some different price points, starting with some easier, lower stuff

to give people in the door.

We started out with some really simple stuff.

We've tried a couple of times now a family night and our family night, you come out and

you come out 5.30 to 9.30 at night, bring your family.

It's a couple hundred bucks.

Do some driver training with our instructor.

We go through a classroom session and we put them on the track.

What's called a lead and follow on our road course where they're actually driving a

Hellcat, they're following instructor and they're teaching them line and weight transfer

and different thing, but having a lot of fun.

Then we throw you in the passenger seat with one of our instructors and show you how it

can be done and the night with a cool barbecue, catered dinner in our event center.

So that's our base program.

And then we go up from there.

We go into what we call, well, we have some unique things.

We have the drags with Alex Taylor.

That's something we're doing a couple of times a year.

We started it last year and it was a big hit.

We're doing one this coming December 19th for $699.

You can come out for the day.

You spend five hours there and Alex Taylor is our guest instructor.

So you actually go through our, teach you how to do burnouts properly in a Hellcat and

we put you on the drag strip.

You put on the drag strip, 10 second pass and a 2018 demon with one of us driving.

We switch and put you in the driver's seat and see how good you could do at it.

You make a 10 second pass down the track.

Then you go for a ride with Alex in the passenger seat in the demon 170 and then have

dinner with her and hang out with her and talk about racing.

So that's something unique that we're doing, something new and exciting.

But if you get into our experiences overall, we've actually come up with our first one.

It's called a supercharged racing experience.

It's a one day experience in a Hellcat.

It's basically our high performance driving course, which just tweaked a little bit to

make it a little more exciting.

So you come out for a day, you spend a day going through all of our different training

sessions and a lot of track time in a Hellcat on the road course.

You know, the second you said, we teach you how to do burnouts.

Mark and I both jerked our heads up and looked at each other like, are we going to do burnouts?

Well, you know, it's kind of funny because you think about it.

Our skid pad training, we have our, our purpose-built skid cars that have what we

call training wheels, hydraulics on all four corners so we can lift the car up.

But when I tell you, we're going to put you in this car and we're going to take you out

and we're going to teach you how to do donuts all day long and do it.

Control donuts and have fun doing it safely.

I mean, that's a little more exciting.

They come with a factory line lock and launch controls.

Have no idea how to utilize those options, make all kinds of smoke and do it safely.

So that's kind of a cool, fun thing.

The demons in the desert, you get to go drive a 2018 demon.

I mean, you spend a learning to drive it and you get to go drive one.

How many places can you drive a 2018 demon?

There isn't a whole lot of those out there.

We have a single day formula racing.

So basically we took our, our F four class.

So we've been teaching F four drivers, young drivers.

We have a scholarship program we do with Goodyear every year.

Young drivers, if they want to be an F one driver someday, they start out in that four car.

All right, so our big one is our triple threat ultimate racing experience.

So what we've done is we've combined basically the first couple ones that we talked about.

So day one of the triple threat, you start out in the Hellcat.

You do all the driver training and safety training with that.

The road course instruction, driving it really fast on the road course.

Day two, you drive the open wheel car, the formula four car.

You get that total experience for the whole day on track.

The introduction to the car, all those things with that car.

On day three, you get to drive our demon one seventies.

So, you know, this is a very unique car, a very special car.

I mean, I'm sure you're familiar with it.

A thousand and twenty five horsepower limited production.

I mean, there's really nowhere in the world that the general public

can go by or go drive a demon one seventy.

They only made three thousand of them and they're very hard to find.

But we have seven of them.

So we're very fortunate that we can give people the opportunity

to come out and actually drive one.

What's the top three things they end up learning about driving a car

with over a thousand horsepower?

What are the what are the big three that they usually walk away with?

Bring extra underwear. That's one.

Yeah, that's one.

You know, I think realistically, we really teach them throttle control.

We teach them how to use the features in the car and trust the car.

And part of that comes with them understanding the car and respecting the car.

And we teach them visual aspects.

And it sounds funny, but we actually teach people in a high horsepower car

and drag racing, we teach them thought process.

They're thinking where they're looking affects how they control the car.

When you're trying to control a thousand horsepower for a couple seconds.

And probably you also teach them how to fit somebody facing them

in the front seat while they're driving.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, it's a thousand horsepower.

I would.

I know you're still holding out to find out.

There's one of these cars that's got a set of craggers on it.

I know you're dying.

A man can dream.

That sounds awesome.

You know, I do have a golf cart with the cragger hubcaps on it.

So I mean, that's about as close as we have with the school right now.

All right, you're on the right track.

Keep going. All right, he's excited.

He's in. Yeah, exactly.

God, you've got so much stuff to do.

How long do these classes run?

Dude, I mean, are they multi-day all day?

Well, we start out with the single day and we have the single day

ultimate muscle car experience on the road course, the single day drag

strip, the single day formula class.

And then we combine them.

You go into a two day that includes the the road race course

with the Hellcat and the drag race course with the 2018 demon.

And if you do the ultimate, you're there for three days.

So you basically do all three of those cars.

So, you know, like I said, it's it's unique in the fact that all of our

regular courses have always been with different day options.

If you take a high performance driving course, you can take a one, two or three

day. If you take a GT road racing course, you can take a one, two or three day.

But now you have the opportunity to come for three days and do three

totally different things.

You can drive an open wheel car, a Hellcat and a demon in those three days.

My trying to give people the opportunity to do something really cool

and excited that there is nowhere else in the world you can do this.

Mark, when's the last time you gave yourself a vacation?

Yeah, I know, right? Warm weather.

Go see some cactus hang out in the desert.

No, by the way, go scare yourself stupid in a thousand horsepower car.

That's right. That's right.

Like a girl and enjoy it. Oh, yes. Hell, yes.

So do you offer more personal instruction for those who learn better

one on one? I know my youngest daughter would probably do better,

not in a classroom, but just with a single instructor.

Yes, we do.

We all of our courses, we offer what's called private instruction

and we base that on what that individual driver is looking for,

whether it's a new driver, like you said, that is uncomfortable

in a classroom position with other people and would rather be

an individual by herself with an instructor.

We can do that all the way up to the majority of our private instruction

is with race car drivers that drive regularly that want to come down

and freshen up and work more on different skills and different things

with our instructors.

We have a lot of our students that come back on a regular basis,

so they'll come through all of our different classes

and then they'll come back for private instruction on a regular basis.

They pick a specific instructor that they like,

one or two that they've worked with numerous times

and they'll call him, OK, I want to come out for two days or three days.

I want Rob, I want BJ, I want Parker.

I want a specific instructor and I want to work with them and we can do that.

What is throttle therapy and what makes it special?

So throttle therapy is something we came out with actually a few years ago

and it's we tried doing it numerous times throughout the year

and we fell into the way it works best is to do it on holidays.

So it's a special day to bring out to come out in a group.

So what throttle therapy is, it's a half day program.

We put through anywhere from 15 to 40 people in that during the day

and we break you up into groups.

And right now we're doing it on New Year's and Father's Day.

So we get a lot of families that come out,

a lot of people that will buy throttle therapy for family members

for a Christmas present for a Father's Day present,

come out with dad for Father's Day.

It's a great experience.

It's real real high adrenaline,

real high energy with all the different people.

It does involve a lot of instruction.

We do our skid pad training with our skid cars.

We do a accident avoidance program.

Then we do an autocross course where we teach weight transfer.

But it's time.

So, you know, there's an award at the end of the day.

Whoever has the fastest autocross time.

We do some lead and follows on the road course.

So it's just a real exciting day with a touch of everything we do.

You know, we're a driver training school, but, you know,

experience is a big thing.

And if you look at a lot of the other programs, if you go to

you purchase a new BMW, you purchase the different types of cars.

They'll offer you a single day.

They teach you how to drive that car.

They're great programs and they really teach you a lot about the car

and some basics of driving.

We call those experiences because it's a single day thing

where they have a set format they put you through.

Traditionally, that wasn't what we do, but we found a way to combine all of those.

We found a way to put a little bit of all the safety driving and driver training

that we normally do in our classes into a single day experience in a group session

that's really fun and exciting.

So we brought up earlier the security professional driving.

Explain the difference between teaching performance driving

and security professional driving.

There's different types of security type driving that we do.

So we have a tactical driving course and then we have some advanced courses.

The majority of what we see with that actually, honestly, is our four day,

what we call our four day GT road racing course.

We have a version of that that we put a lot of military people through.

We do Navy SEALs and CIA and FBI and different groups that come out.

A lot of those groups and individuals have had some basic training

in whatever branch that they're in.

FBI, for example, they have a basic training course when their agents go to

Quantico, but it's more advanced training that we do in those training.

The one thing that we add into our tactical and our military training

is we do a lot of night driving and a lot of those.

So where it's actually we do some night vision driving and different things like that.

OK, can two moron podcasters come down there and record shows?

I'm sure we could come up with something for you.

I just want to be able to learn how to, you know, be spinning the car

so you're going in a complete circle and you step out of the car and fire off six rounds

just from the driver's seat.

You're able to just step out and then bam, start tonight.

Bruce Willis did it.

I think, oh, God, what was your name from wanted?

Did it and Ben bullets while I'm doing it, too?

Oh, that's the dumbest thing ever.

That's the best movie ever.

Dumbest thing ever.

I can't do that.

I may sit in salt room in it, but then I'll get over.

Yeah. Well, you can't whip a bullet around something.

That's not how physics works.

So see, there's all kinds of stuff you can learn there.

You're thinking of Angelina Jolie.

Yes, I am. And no, she cannot.

She can do a lot of stuff, but she can't do that.

A film doesn't lie.

She gives a little African kids a lot.

You know, I would think that you,

I would think the two of you would be very used to editing.

So, you know, I'm just going to say that.

OK, yeah, it isn't real.

It's TV. Yeah, what?

Everything you see on TV isn't necessarily real.

No, I was waiting for him to call us a couple of idiots.

We usually we're used to that.

Well, thank you, Dream Killer.

So Chuck, being raised in a racing family

and you were raised in a racing family, I was.

You've broken a bunch of different records.

Can you talk about growing up racing

and some of the records you hold?

Yeah, I mean, records, you know, I've been a drag racer my whole life.

And, you know, records are kind of different

in drag racing than other types of things.

You know, they come and go, right?

I mean, you come out and you do something cool.

And, you know, a couple of months later, a year later,

somebody else does it.

So I don't put a lot of, you know, effort into that.

I think it's just unique things

that I've been able to experience and do.

You know, I'm a I'm a performance enthusiast

and it doesn't matter what type of car it is, what type of driving.

You know, I grew up as a Chevy guy, still am.

I mean, I love my Chevy's.

You know, I work for a Dodge driving school

and they're incredible cars.

I mean, they're amazing cars.

They're unbelievable.

The Demon 170 is the most impressive production

and race car I've ever driven.

It really is.

So, you know, I've driven and owned BMWs

and a lot of different types of cars.

So I've done some road racing.

But part, you know, my heart is still in drag racing.

It really is.

That's just what I grew up with.

My parents drag raced.

You know, my mom was drag racing when I was really little.

She was driving a 69 Corvette with a four speed in it.

And, you know, she had run faster

than the factory stock record for that car back in the 70s.

And, you know, my dad was racing.

He was racing Nova's back in the 70s

with big black Chevy's and, you know,

Dugnash five speeds and crazy times back then.

So that's what I grew up with.

What's the fastest you've ever gone?

Drag racing wise, I've been in the seven second range

at in the 180 mile an hour range.

What were you in?

In a dragster.

So I've actually gone.

So I've actually I did some driving

in some ride alongs in a two seater dragster

a few times for a couple of different people.

And I've been seven seconds in a two seater dragster.

That was kind of interesting.

So but yeah, I mean, dragsters, I I've never owned a dragster.

I shouldn't say never, never up until recently.

I just purchased one recently that I'm building

that my son and I are going to race.

I've always been a car guy.

I like to be inside of a car with doors and a roll cage.

OK, there you go. There you go.

But once I drove a dragster a few times, they are impressive.

You know, you can go really fast and it's a lot easier

to go seven seconds in a dragster than in a big car.

So that's part of drag racing.

So what is it you and your son are working on?

What's it got in it?

So we've got numerous race cars.

I mean, I have three sons and a daughter.

They all grew up racing junior dragsters.

I mean, they started out racing big wheels with a big wheel program

where they race for 60 feet on the drag strip.

And my kids were big wheel champions for a couple of years

at our local track and then they went into junior dragsters

and they went into cars.

My oldest son has a couple race cars.

He has a 67 Nova real nice car that that's a seven second capable car.

We run it slower in bracket racing.

He has an old Ford courier with a small block Chevy.

It's a 10 second car.

You've got a 10 second courier.

Yeah, that's got to be scary as hell.

It's got a small block Chevy in it, of course.

But yeah, it's a cool truck, cool little truck.

You know, I've got a Toyota truck that I'd built years ago

that was an eight second truck with a big block Chevy in it.

So I've still got that.

We've got I've got a 68 Camaro that actually bought in high school

that I've raced my whole life and it's been sitting in the garage

for a long time now, but I still have that.

We're building a dragster.

We bought a it's going to be a seven second dragster.

So just bought a roller recently.

So starting to put that together with the engine and trans and different things.

What's the drivetrain on it?

It'll be a big block Chevy.

Do you know displacement yet or have you decided, you know, not yet.

I have a couple of motors for it.

Try and decide if I'm going to put one of those in or buy something different.

You know, I've got a 533 that's a thousand horsepower motor.

I might put that in or I might buy something different.

I haven't gotten that far yet.

Can I send you my Corvette?

There's this issue with time, you know, I mean, time doesn't always work

with my wants and needs.

I'm sure you can relate to that.

Oh, absolutely.

Oh, come on.

All the fun things you do only last seven seconds.

Yeah, maybe ten.

So of your personal cars, not necessarily dragsters, what do you have in your garage

right now that's fun?

And do you get to drive your own stuff?

Any, um, you know, I, I do occasionally.

I mean, I've had a variety of stuff.

I mean, right now I've got to, well, if you walk in my garage right now, there's my

68 Camaro, the dragster.

Um, I have a BMW M5 competition.

I love that car.

I mean, it's just a fun car.

Nice driver.

I mean, it's fast, you know, 700 horsepower.

You can go down the road course.

You can drag race it.

You can take off across country with the stereo blaring and the windows up.

And so it's a fun car.

Um, I've got a couple other things in there.

I've got a 71 Monte Carlo that my son's been building a big block car.

I've got a 63 Studebaker Hawks in my garage right now.

That's actually my neighbor's doing some work on.

So is that got the 29 is daily?

Yeah.

The grand, grand tarismo.

Yep.

Oh my God.

Oh, Mark's going to need a moment.

Yeah, those things are so fun.

Does it still have that big fricking cast iron?

Uh, um, uh, what is it?

Power steering pump?

Yeah.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

There's so much weight under that hood.

I don't see how you could make it fast, but I'm sure you can.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You go to jack the car up with a floor jack and floor jack doesn't lift it.

Yeah.

It's just, it's just like, no, no.

Yeah.

Good.

Yeah.

So yeah, I, you walk on my backyard, you know, there's cars and trailers everywhere.

So that's sometimes they don't come home.

I don't know where they came from.

The kids been busy.

Hey, when they bring that back?

Yeah, exactly.

My youngest son daily is sending me cars on marketplace and dad, let's go buy this.

Uh, Mark and I do that toward the end of the show when we're talking or the

beginning goes, I'm always showing him something stupid that I think he should

have and then he's sending me something worse.

So we have an ongoing deal right now.

You can't bring home another car until one leaves.

So does that, does that count if he takes it apart?

It hasn't so far.

It hasn't really been working, but we're trying.

You know, a guy that if you're interested in a Vega, we have to send you the world's

most interesting Vega.

It's in Pueblo, Colorado.

We actually just, we just recently added a Volkswagen squarebacks in the back yard.

So that's an upcoming project, something totally different.

Mid-engine small block.

I smell it coming already.

Yeah.

You know, for some reason, my youngest son and I got on this wagon kick.

Well, you know, I mean, we see cool wagons.

We want to go buy them.

We actually have two BMW wagons now and a Volkswagen squareback.

And yeah, so we have two E46 wagons.

And so, yeah, who knows.

You never know what you're going to see in our yard.

Yeah, but you can always, that marketplace addiction is scary.

Dude, it's real.

Oh, no, no, it's very, it's very genuine, very genuine.

Last time we had you on the show, we asked you about the dumbest thing

you've ever done in a car.

And since it's been a year in change, you got a choice.

Either what's the dumbest thing in you've done in a car since we talked to you?

Or what's the dumbest thing you've seen someone else do in a car?

And that means ever.

Or what's the dumbest thing you've seen happen at Radford?

You put me on the spot there.

So the first thing that pops up in my mind with somebody else's,

I actually had a driver.

So we instruct the demon 170 drag racing class.

And it's, you know, it's a really amazing class.

We have a two day class where, you know, by day two, we have all the drivers

making four or five consecutive nine second passes at 145 miles an hour in this car.

And that really is an amazing feat that I've had.

I've never had a driver yet that haven't got into the nines.

And we've had a few that I were really worried about, but we got them there.

And I had one recently.

So we teach them how to use the transmission brake in it.

And it's kind of a complicated process.

But basically when they leave the starting line, they're like letting go of a paddle.

So you're holding the car with a paddle.

You've got both hands on the wheel and there's two paddles.

There's one on each side.

And when you stage the car, you let go of the first paddle.

And then when you launch the car, you let go of the second.

And I talk them through the process on the radio.

So they go up and I'm on the radio in the car.

And I'm, you know, both paddles back, hard brake, I'm talking

and through this whole thing.

And I had a student, I stand next to the car and I watch in the window

to make sure they're doing each step.

So when I say pull back on both paddles, then I wait and I say hard brake.

I watch him push the brake pedal.

I say punches to the floor, release your first paddle, take your foot off the break.

When I see him move their foot off the break, I say, you know, when you're ready,

just let go of that paddle and hold on.

I'm standing next to the guy, the car.

And when I see the guy let go of the paddle with his right hand,

he had both hands on the wheel, both of his hands come off the wheel

and up in the air as the car launches like he threw his arms up in the air

when he let go and he launched the car.

The car takes off, front tires come off the ground and he reached back down

and grabbed the steering wheel.

I mean, that scared me a little bit.

That's probably one of the craziest things I've ever seen.

And then he came back around, he came back around to make his second pass

and he did it again.

I talked to him about it.

I said, you have to hold on to the wheel.

Just let go with your fingers and make sure your other hands holding on.

Both hands off the wheel, up in the air, grab back onto the wheel and went on the track.

So I was a little crazy.

That's terrifying as hell.

That's a Jesus take the wheel moment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Geez, because I have it.

How strong are you in your religion?

Let's see it right now.

Right, right.

Wow, that's scary.

I can't imagine what that was like sitting there standing beside that going,

wait, and what do you do?

Are you yelling into the thing?

Grab the wheel, grab the wheel, grab the wheel.

Are you just like, well, whatever happens happens?

Well, when you see panic situations, I don't like to yell into the radio

because it actually draws their attention and frightens them normally.

So it's, you know, it's very seldom that I actually say something on the radio

once they leave the starting line.

But there's been a few cases that I had to.

But not very often.

Yeah, the first thing that comes out of Chex, Chexmouth is shit.

Yeah, yeah.

Do I close my eyes?

What do I do right now?

Let's hold my breath.

We've been speaking with Chuck Sundstrom of Radford Racing School.

Chuck, please tell us where we can find you online and on social media.

RadfordRacingSchool.com, you know, it's that's our website.

Go there.

It has everything that we have talked about.

It lists our racing courses, our driving courses, our experience.

Just follow RadfordRacingSchool on social media, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook.

We post a lot, a lot of different things about everything we do.

A lot of videos, social media posts constantly.

So just check this out.

And if a couple of podcasts make it down your way,

you can probably post all the dumb stuff we do.

Look at these idiots.

Yeah, we think we know everything.

Because the next time I'm on the show

and you put me on the spot with this kind of a question,

I'll have some good answers when you guys were there.

I saw this 62-year-old idiot grin like a moron.

Absolutely, deal.

I will take that deal.

And this podcast guy, he did this and he did that.

He talked a lot of shit, but you should have seen how it happened.

Yeah, not real smart, but real entertaining.

Chuck, thank you so much for being with us

and appreciate putting up with us on our technical issues.

Yes, you're welcome.

Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

So Chuck, always patient with us.

Oh, man, you know, you could hear in there

that there were some little bitty blips and stuff.

Yeah, we once again were fighting technology, but no, we're fighting

the stupid laptop I won't replace.

That's what we're fighting.

Well, OK, that.

Well, and every time we have problems with that particular laptop.

Now, this was not my fault.

Rhonda and I are coming back from Jacksonville a few years ago,

and I was down there covering stuff at Amelia Island.

And we're going through.

If we're going through the airport, shoot,

I'm trying to remember how this worked out.

We were driving home.

Oh, that's right.

We were driving home in a cayenne and it broke down outside of Nashville.

OK, and it was a fairly large repair

that turned out to have been the fault of our repair shop here in town.

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right.

They hadn't tightened up at some bolts and some things.

The car on finger tight screws

had made it from Kansas City to Jacksonville and halfway back.

Damn. OK.

And so I was trying.

Yeah. And so

it was going to be a pretty big repair.

We had to leave it at Portia of Nashville.

And we were going through TSA and Nashville

and they somehow managed to partially tear the lid off my stupid laptop.

Oh, oh, God, that's right.

I forgot about that.

And then I had to go.

You know, the repair on the laptop was almost as much as the laptop itself.

And of course, TSA and Nashville said, yeah, I thought it was like that.

Of course, they did.

And that's when you blow a gasket and you start swearing at TSA

and you wind up in a little room.

There's there's a glove and no lube and no love.

They're just looking for your class ring.

It's not a good there.

Somewhere in your duodenum.

Yeah, they're looking for looking for their class ring.

And oh, there's three others. Yeah, who knew?

Hey, Jimmy, come look at this.

I learned a lesson about there's people you can blow up at and people you can't.

And there's people that really deserve it.

You can't say anything to you.

Yeah, you just let it go and those people work for the TSA.

That being said, so anyway, I had the computer completely rebuilt

and the lid fixed and it cost almost as much as a new computer.

And now every time we have troubles with it, I'm just thinking, that's a TSA.

Because they tore it in half.

Yeah, well, they did.

It was it was very, very broken.

And what was kind of coincidental is right after that happened.

One of my editors called me and said, this sale just happened.

Can you write a little something about it?

I said, I'm on my phone.

He said, well, just write it on your phone.

Oh, my God, no, I'm not writing you five hundred words on my phone.

Screw that. I hate texting.

I hate it with a passion.

Yeah, I really do.

These sausages don't fit on the phone.

I don't do the thumb thing.

I hate it or any one or the five hundred word text.

Jesus. And I just said, you know.

No. And he said, well, I'll give it to somebody else.

And I was like, it's a fine girl.

I had not hurt my feelings.

I love you mean it.

But I almost had a thorough reaming from TSA just now.

So you don't mean nothing.

I'm still scared.

I was still scared.

So anyway, every time we have technical problems with that computer,

I'm cussing the TSA.

And it was so nice of our guest

because we had to cancel one time because of that problem.

Yeah, same computer.

He just like a champ, man, like a champ.

Got through it, told good stories.

Good job.

I'm going upstairs and I'm going through that computer.

I'm going to make sure everything works really well.

What was weird is we had to cancel that show.

We ran a best of it a couple of weeks ago.

And then we had dead Pollock last week.

Everything just ran.

Oh, it was like, yeah, pooped through a goose.

And we easy peasy.

And we came down here early tonight

and went through everything and that's just gave us the effort.

Yeah. And then you have who coming on.

Oh, and the weirdest thing,

it wouldn't pick up Wi-Fi in the studio,

which is where it's rich because there's a repeater right there.

But it would pick it up off my phone.

Yeah, that was odd.

We did this show on my phone, which was weird.

So Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi.

Cool whip.

For those of you who are family guy fans,

that'll make a lot of sense.

Anyway, thank you all for spending time

with Driven Radio and being patient with us.

We appreciate you.

And Chuck, thank you for being patient with us this evening.

We really appreciate that.

We love what we do, obviously,

or we wouldn't keep plugging through this.

Fight through this to get there.

Yeah, no kidding.

We love what we do and we wouldn't be able to do it

without the support of our listeners.

So thank you so very much.

You can find us online at DrivenRadioShow.com.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Driven Radio Show.

And on LinkedIn as Driven Radio Show podcast.

If you have a story you would like to tell,

and we've got one of these coming up,

and this guy who's been on the show previously,

I had forgotten about this.

He was on one of the big shows where we had 30 guests on.

Jay, right?

Yeah, it was Jay.

And he's going to come on and talk about something

really ridiculous that he did that wound up setting a record,

which was pretty cool.

Anyway, if you have a story you would like to tell

or someone you would like us to interview,

please contact me, Brett, B-R-E-T-T, at DrivenRadioShow.com.

I am Brett Hatfield for Mark L. Groves.

Yo.

Thank you for listening,

and we'll see you next time here on Driven Radio.

Wait, are they done?

I thought those two dorks would never shut up.

I love commercials.

Especially when they're about cool hangouts

and great mechanics for car people.

Bring me the commercials now.

You are just so manly.

Look, I think I grew a new chest hair.

You know, Daryl Ossipic might just

be the most interesting man on earth.

Might be.

If you look at his collection of vehicles,

you'll realize this is a Renaissance man

from weird old beaters to serious performance hot rods.

All in one place.

Owner of Ossipic Automotive, Daryl is the car whisperer

practicing voodoo that brings vehicles back from the dead.

Just for us here on this show, Daryl

is working on Mercury Mountaineer, classic Corvette,

Nissan Xterra, unusual Mercedes-Benz,

and a 64 Dodge Custom 880.

Neither of ours anymore.

Not no, Moe.

But you know why it ran?

Daryl Ossipic.

That's right.

In other words, we come to him with our whining issues,

and he comes back to us with shiny, fixed automobiles.

It is like magic.

Daryl has ASE certified mechanics and happily

gives binding estimates.

You might not know he's happy, but that

might be because he ceases coming in here.

And it erases all of his joy.

Yeah, you'll watch that face drop.

Daryl will explain what he finds, what he plans on doing,

and lets you make your decisions.

Nothing hidden, no mechanic bait and switch.

He's straight up and even guarantees

all work for at least one month or 1,000 miles.

Ossipic Automotive, that's OSI, PIK, Automotive, 5920

Merriam Drive in Merriam, Kansas, called Daryl at 913-831-3613.

What was that number?

913-831-3613.

Don't even have to read it.

It's been in my head for a while now.

That dude on the back of my skull.

Ask for the big D and tell him Brett sent you.

After he sighs heavily, he'll get you taken care of 913-831-3613

Ossipic Automotive.

Driven Radio Show #326: Chuck Sundstrom of Radford Racing School

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Dodge Hellcat

Formula 4 car

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