In Wheel Time Podcast: Your Go-To Automotive Talk Show Jan 9, 2024

Full Throttle: Inside the World of SCCA Road Racing, Autocross, and the Evolution of Car Culture

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Welcome to another In Wheel Time Podcast, a 30 minute mini version of the In Wheel Time Car Show that airs live every Saturday morning 8 to 11am.

Central In Wheel Time Car Talk Podcasting and streaming worldwide.

It's the In Wheel Time Car Talk Show.

Just ahead, our go to road racer aficionado, richard Tomlin, joins us talking about SCCA.

Conrad will have the In Wheel Time Car Clinic and review of the 2024 racing season that's just about to get underway.

Jeff's going to have his highway stripes that glow in the dark.

That's a feature we're going to have and we'll have this week's automotive news Howdy, along with Mike out of this World, mars King, conrad DeLong.

We always need more Jeff Seekin.

I'm Don Armstrong, glad you could join us today and we're also glad to join Richard Tomlin down at Apex Auto.

Hello, works, richard, good morning.

Good morning guys, how y'all doing.

Well, very well.

Happy New Year.

Oh yeah, it's been a good one so far, has it?

I'm going to keep this going yeah good.

Well, let's see what are you working on down there.

Yeah, usual Been a clobber with BMWs.

Recently Seems like a lot of BMW people got hit over the holidays, so working on a couple of BMW modern and vintage.

Yeah, so you're throwing a motor.

And what was it?

An E36?

Yeah, I got an E36.

We got a 2002.

We've got a brand new X3, so quite a variety right now.

Interesting.

Do you like working on BMWs?

We work on them.

Better than a Corvette, huh.

They're not a Chevrolet.

How about that?

They're not a Chevrolet.

Yeah, you ought to just stick an LS in one of them and tub it out.

We've been down that path.

We've been on that path.

We were actually a part of the first team that actually did that.

Now that kid is sold by Worshag Motorsports out of Dallas.

Oh wow, that's almost 20 years ago, believe it or not.

So been a long time.

Interesting.

Yeah, let's, let's focus in on SCCA road racing.

Can anybody do that?

Anybody with a driver's license can walk up and come participate with us tomorrow, Basically where?

Tomorrow is our biggest event of the year for autocross.

I don't know why, but January events tend to be the largest for us.

We've had records of 285 people showing up to autocross with us on one day.

We're looking at about 200 cars.

Tomorrow Starts about 7 am up at the police academy.

If you're not signed up at this point, it cost you 55 bucks to come out and drive your car or properly equipped SUV or wagon.

So this is basically parking lot cone racing and you're not racing side by side with somebody else, you're racing the clock.

Correct.

You're racing the clock and we put 25 seconds between each car, so there's a chance of crossover getting caught up, unless there was something major In 25 years of this, I think nationally we've had like six or seven accidents total on any given weekend.

Scca has over 6000 cars racing in autocross alone.

How do you get involved in SCCA racing?

SCCA is really easy to get involved.

I mean, that's what started me down this path, you know, 25 years ago, 26 years.

Now I've got my 25 year pin, so I guess it's been 26,.

But $35 a year for membership gets you into the calendar and all the events, although now all that's available on the worldwide web.

Our local one is hrusdcacom, so Houston SCCAcom.

The major one is SCCAcom.

That's national, and the national stuff is where a lot of people that are aspiring to be the biggest and greatest I mean that's where the voids, that's where the answers, that's where all of them came from, that's where your Shelby's came from, that's where your Ken Miles come from is SCCA roots.

It's where it all starts.

I had a friend of mine and notice I said had had a Corvette and he was.

He was really into road racing and he took the basically stripped off the entire bottom of the car suspension and put this custom road racing suspension on the car.

I didn't even know there were kids for Corvettes that did that, but he spent up.

I mean, if you looked underneath the car you'd think, wow, that's pretty impressive.

I mean there's a lot of changes.

What are the changes that are that are done to the suspension for a track car?

The first thing you'll see is going with much different spring rates, slower acting shocks.

So I slow down how the car actually moves and the biggest thing you'll find is alignment.

People will tweak and tune on alignment every event.

Some people are actually adjusting alignments in the parking lot.

Depends on how competitive you want to go.

There are other people that will drive to the track on the exact same tires that they're going to run around and play on.

So some some people out there to play and some people are out there to smash skulls.

Yeah well, this was not that, but I will tell you that he did.

He did tweak shock absorbers and and alignments and tire pressures.

Explain all that why.

So the tire pressure thing is an amazing one, because after you've been autocrossing for a while, some people are much faster than others to pick it up.

But you'll get to where, around an autocross course, you can tell the difference of two PSI and tire pressure.

Front to rear in a car, you can tell when it's actually down from optimal performance, and that all translates over to your daily driver.

When you're driving it's like you just know that something is a little bit off and it seems crazy to think that two, two PSI is noticeable, but it truly is Once you start getting tuned in and understanding what your car is doing.

The alignment part of it is just the ability to make the car turn immediately when you want it to turn, and that's usually achieved autocross with what we call tow out, so your toe out.

Imagine your pizza slice with french fries and snow skiing.

So basically you're taking your skis and basically you're just putting them just a little bit out.

So it's a little bit out and you immediately make that right.

That right tire is already just a little bit out, so it makes that instant transition to suck the car in around the cone.

Everybody tweaks that a little bit different.

Some are a 16th of an inch, some are an eighth.

Some people are aggressive in the heavy metal classes, which are the cars that are over 3500 pounds, american V8s.

They'll run almost a quarter inch of toe out on slicks but those cars change direction like ice skater.

It's amazing how they make a car that heavy move and transition.

Well, really, I mean, it seems to me that if you want to get really serious about autocrossing, there are different stages that you can spend money in, and I think that the first one is getting yourself a set of track tires.

Well.

So that used to be the case.

Now we've got street tire classes, so now you can literally show up on what you're on and you'll be competing against other street tire cars.

Now are there better street tire tires, of course, but you can show up and actually be competitive out of the box.

I think we're like 43 classes now.

I kind of I'm the frowner of having so many classes, because it seems like not everybody gets trophy.

There's a lot of trophies.

I prefer having three or four classes and let's go crown a champion.

But there are classes they can get in and be competitive.

They may only have nine or 10 people to beat, but that's 10 people to go beat up on.

That's an interesting thought process there.

So what is the most popular street tire?

Street tires out there that not only still hold up on the street with some sort of rain shedding possibilities and actually do well on the track?

What brand, what would you go with?

It is Houston, so we do have to worry about the weather, but the hot one right now is the Yokohama AO 52.

And that falls into a category they call 200 treadwear, and this is a mythical number that came up in how quickly a tire wears out.

Like our real race tires are like a 40 treadwear, they're soft, but you go to a Michelin it's like a 800, 900 treadwear.

Michelin and Alastu.

You know 50, 60,000 miles these tires Alastu on the street, probably 10, maybe 8,000 miles, but you'll change them a lot faster.

But when you show up to the track you will be amazed at how well a street driven tire can work.

And they're very sticky when you heat them up.

Every brand or brand of a tire they like, but the Yokohama is the hot button right now.

Very soon.

Most of them drive out there on their street tires and then run.

Yeah, I would say 90% of the auto processors drive their vehicles to the event and they may bring a little utility trailer with their spares so they don't fit inside the car and they'll change tires in a parking lot.

There's probably 90% that do that.

You only got about 10% of the cars that are trailer and those are just dedicated auto cross cars.

Right, but I was thinking about with the tires when we were talking about the tires, yeah, they still drive them.

Susan Trimble Naps says she's a fan of the Falcon RT660s.

Yeah, susan plays a lot.

She runs with a couple HPDEs as well.

Her car I would be nice to see the way to her car is.

It's gotta be 300 pounds because hers is still full interior, but she's out almost every weekend playing with us somewhere.

Yeah, good for her yeah.

Tell me, is it like a first or second gear auto cross course you set up up there at HPD?

Auto cross is almost always second gear.

Second gear, yeah, usually you come out of the first second corner, you're in second gear.

You'll be in second gear for the rest of the course.

Gotcha.

So you don't have to really worry about shifting in the corners and stuff like that.

It's just breaking.

It's really not a high speed event.

This is more along the lines of a tip-till around the course.

It depends on how fast you go in second gear.

I think once you're in the car with someone that is truly in second gear and enjoying the course, you won't call it a tip-till, I promise oh no, I will.

It's the distance and the gates that are out there.

Yeah, you're up to third.

It makes road racing look calm.

Yeah, you're not having to go up to third, come back down to second.

Yeah, yeah yeah, so the course out at the police academy is that something that you guys set up, or are you using the roads that are already built into the police academy?

So you have to use the nature of what they've built, which is a large figure eight with a junction on the side that ties the two figure eight loops together, and we basically set up our own course on that.

So it's most of it's a two lane concrete pad.

The back side's got a lot of camber on it and we basically set up the gates, the cones, where we want, where there's left lane, right lane, in the middle, just a little bit offset, and that's what lays out your course, that you'll drive through as quick as possible, time down to 1,000th of a second, and then at the end of the day we crowned a trophy on who was fastest.

In the class, so you change it up a little bit Her class.

Yeah.

Every event.

Within the asphalt that you got to work with.

He said asphalt.

You'll never run the same course twice.

That's the other.

Benefit of autocross is you're going out there and seeing what you can do.

You walk the course one or two times, hop in your car and go drive.

See how quickly you can adapt and learn to it.

OK.

And I would also when you mentioned Susan, susan being on here, so again is one of those things where people start out in autocross and then find out oh wait, there's this thing called HBDE.

Wait, there's time trials.

Wait, there's road racing.

Then wait, there's 24 hours of Daytona.

How far do you want to go is only limited by your wallet and your time and your patience.

Yeah.

And she says, yeah, you can go out to a Grand Sport and get up into third gear in some of the stuff as well, which is even that much faster, yeah.

There's a lot, of course, designs that are out there.

I mean we've been doing this.

I mean I think the first one that was held at Houston was 69.

And I'll meet them all.

It was the first one that Houston region had Almeadable, so it's been around for a long time.

Yeah.

Well, you guys used to do some stuff down at the dog track too, didn't you?

Oh yeah, that was our home for many, many years.

That was a good site, but over the years it started decaying and, as we know, ownership has changed multiple times and that site's going under construction now.

I think we're getting a strip mall out in front of it.

actually, what a shame.

What a great go-kart track that would have been.

That was amazing so much asphalt.

It was a good time, we enjoyed that.

So now we're at the Police Academy.

We still race what we call the blunt-based Grand Sport Speedway.

They've got a 1.1

mile track, the same thing we do at the Police Academy.

We just modify that to make an all across out of it.

So that's our South side, north side, and then we also run some events down in Beeville where the Texas model runs.

So we've got a larger concrete pad there which is like our national finals that happens every year in Lincoln.

So when you set up a course, do you try and mimic not that you can as far as elevation changes, but as far as the nature of the turns do you try and mimic certain tracks around the world?

No, not normally.

Normally you're pretty restricted to what the actual course lends to you on site yeah, the size of it.

And then you've got rule sets that you have to keep in mind on how tight the corners can be, how close your solums can be, how wide the gates need to be, and you've got to keep people away from each other.

So there's a lot of parameters you've got to play with to keep everybody safe.

But we've managed to keep life and energy in HPA and running there 20 plus years and still having different courses every event.

Do you have to wear a helmet?

You do need to wear a helmet while you drive.

We do have loaners available if you don't have your own helmet and no motorcycle helmets do not work Bring a car one so we'll loan you one if you need it.

Not a problem.

Open face OK.

Open face is OK and actually starting, I would say, is preferred.

You'll learn that through time the closed face helmet actually allows you to hear and feel more of what's going on the car than the open face.

Really, it's the weirdest thing, weird Like that.

It's because you're encased your head, the sound.

It's just weird how much more you can see and your senses become so heightened when you actually put a full face helmet on and close it.

It's amazing.

Huh, I would have never thought that.

No, that's why Don can't bring his bicycle helmet.

Yeah, yeah, he was going to wear his latex suit and bring his bicycle helmet.

I would say too that I will wear the latex suit, however.

Anyway, go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Sorry.

On another note, so this is the we have an event coming up in February.

That is the first time ever that three Texas regions have gotten together to put on an event and that will actually be at NOLA.

So it's New Orleans, but this is a national event, what they call a super tour.

So you're looking at about 200, 250 road racing vehicles there.

So where they hold the Indie Race down there in NOLA, we're going to be racing down there with all of our regional cars, national cars, but it will be a huge event February 17th and 18th in NOLA and if you want to see a spectacle of grass roots level racing, that will be it for this year in our area.

And where is it held?

I know New.

Orleans, but I know that.

So, they've got a track there that is called NOLA NOLA racing circuit.

It is a flat track, is what we call it.

There's not a lot of elevation there, kind of like MSR Houston.

But they were in Indie, I guess two years ago, conrad, you remember two and a half three years ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, main thing was not free.

Yeah, all new asphalt, really really nice facility.

So they're hosting some very big events.

Last year and this year we've got ours coming up.

It should be a huge event and it will be worth traveling to watch.

It'll be that good.

So do you bring your Ellis Miata?

You call that a Miata.

I would argue there's not much.

Miata left in it.

In the road racing series there's not much place for me to play that.

One falls into the time trials and we could go run an autocross if we want.

But we focus so much on making it a pike's peak that it's just not that good at autocross anymore.

Ok, Not as fun.

Richard, it's always great to talk to you.

Scca, where can we get more information about this event that's coming right up?

SCCAcom is the easiest one, and thenH O U SCCAcom is our regional site as well.

Okay, great to talk to you, as always, and good luck with your BMW fixes down there.

Oh, always a challenge.

Hey, talk to you also Helps you make the payment.

Thank you, brother.

Talk to you soon.

Yeah, richard Talbot, apex Auto Works.

Yeah, exactly, well, we kind of postponed our original feature that.

Jeff had made but we're going to do it now and it's called Highway Stripes.

Yeah, Well.

I like that, and this is a different kind of highway stripes that we're not familiar with.

Well, this is international, because I'm the international correspondent, I picked this up on the internet.

Basically, this looks like Tron.

It does look like Tron, tron the show.

There you go.

So what happened is the Australian government is rolling out a $245 million road safety program, which includes some innovation, new technologies, just to keep drivers safe and cyclists and pedestrians as well.

The most interesting aspect of the program is the implementation of photo luminescent road markings that glow in the dark, just like the plastic stars, conrad, that used to put up on the ceiling of your bedroom as a kid.

I still do.

The lines of the road appear normal in the daytime, but once the night falls, they're as bright as the stars.

According to the state of Victoria, which is a state in Australia, the innovation will help give motorists a stronger definition coming into the intersections curves and will greatly improve reaction time to the road conditions ahead.

A Victorian company called Tarmac Line Marking shared images of the trial run of the glow in the dark road markings, which are impressive.

Even in complete darkness, the lines on the road are clearly visible thanks to the application of the special finish.

Mike, and you're asking yourself, what is that?

Well, research has developed a soy-based luminescent sealant for the use on concrete services.

The luminescent sealant is a mixture of soy, methyl ester polystyrene and strontium aluminate, which is a phosphorescent powder that slowly illuminates after being excited by light.

The luminescent sealant is excited when a constant matter of a xenon lighting system that stimulated sunlight in the luminescence of the excited concrete surface.

Oh, my God, see, and all that.

And I thought all they did was ground up a bunch of lightning bugs you know when you smear one in your hand.

The results of the test indicated that the luminescent surfaces glow 24 hours in the dark.

Because it was excited.

Now I think this is a great idea.

The tarmac lighting people say the new technology would be outstanding product for pedestrians, bike lanes, roads, boat ramps which is important Airports, airports.

In addition, the photo luminescent road lines, the government will also be implementing LED lit pavement near intersections and other more reflective road markings, and the reason for this is your headlights only go so far in front of your car and they're concerned about intersections and dark areas that go on.

So this is actually a very, very good idea and, if you can watch this later on, there's things for tracks and walkways and parks and things.

The phosphorescent paint is also seen as a way to reduce light pollution and one of the main causes of that is lights.

Do they say anything about using it in fog?

It was really foggy this morning and caught me by surprise.

Well, it's, whatever the light.

Whatever light you got Right, it'll illuminate or luminescence, sometimes in the dark, but not bright, not like you're going to see it, yeah, but I can see where, even if you had a little light.

I'm thinking about going to the fog that you might benefit from that.

Well, this actually was done in 2016 in the Netherlands and they had problems because they put it on the lanes, on the roads not very far, probably about half a mile to a mile.

People were actually turning off their lights in the car and using, that is the Netherlands.

They were getting in a lot of problems.

They want to remind everybody that we'd love to hear from you.

Just shoot us an email.

Our address here is info at inwheeltimecom.

Time now for Conrad's car clinic, and you've got just a few minutes here.

Well, you know I thought I'd talk about some of the weird options you could get and unique options you could get in the cars.

Through history, you know, you got to remember back in back of the day you could actually get a radio or a record album player in a car.

Yes, and it had like a 13 cartridge album holder and you could put it in and you could play or be like your own DJ driving down the car.

I always wondered how that worked as far as skips and stuff and rough rides in the road, you know.

Another thing was a Cadillac offered a magnetic glovebox shot glasses.

So the bottom of the shot glass had a magnet on it, absolutely, and they stuck to the glove box when it was open.

I thought how unique that was in its day.

I don't know how many of them they made, but I imagine not many before the.

I have one that the, the popo, got involved In 1956 through 1960, chevrolet offered a vacuum ash tray which really sucked.

Oh, but that was going to happen.

It would draw the ashes and the smoke in and store it in a little glass mason jar.

I would imagine it held on to another words.

It's kind of like a car bomb, a car bomb, yeah, that's right, car bomb.

And then in 1969, general Motors offered what it called liquid tire chains and you know they sold it as an AC Delco product and it was even available in the Camaro, the liquid tire chains.

And Chevrolet advertised liquid tire chains in the Camaro and it was like a little cartridge just plugged into the trunk and it would shoot on the tire and it would shoot some kind of goo on the tire to help you with snow traction.

Nothing like shooting goo.

I don't think it was too effective, but they offered it.

They say it's quite a unique option if you can find one in the 69 Camaro and then in the 75 through 86, Jeep sold a Levi's edition with a denim jean interior.

On a Corvette.

Well, no, that one's a little out of.

That might be my fault, is that a place?

Chevrolet offered from 77 through 81 on the Corvette C3 a towing package.

If you can believe that, what are you going to tow with a Corvette?

The little known ZN1 towing package cost $355.

It would fit onto your C3 only if you had the Jim Cajana suspension.

You had Jim Cajana on yours, didn't you?

I did, did it?

You didn't have the towing package, I did not have the towing package, I could not imagine towing anything with a Corvette, but you could tow your.

BMW.

You'd have to tow your BMW, I would have a.

Bmw but thank you for offering, so you know another weird little option that they offered.

And then the Holden Commodore offered a fax machine inside their vehicle for $3,300.

You don't know why.

In 97 through 2001,.

The Honda CR-V offered a shower that, when you opened up the rear gate, it would hang from the rear gate and you could take a shower to wash your you know, wash your shoes or your kids off.

In the 1990s, Chrysler offered the Visor phone.

Remember Sorry, I must get through it.

The Visor phone was.

You know, a lot of manufacturers offered phones.

Well, you know, hey, your Visor is ringing.

Answer it.

Volkswagen offered a collection of electric guitars that were part of an option package on some of their Volkswagen products, and those have become have become quite collectible as well.

They actually offered a Pink Floyd edition golf with a guitar that came with it, and then in 19,.

in 2013, the Fiat 500 offered an espresso machine That'd be fun, but the only problem is you have to stop every few feet to go to the bathroom.

But forget about it.

Forget about it, forget about it, that's it.

All right, thank you, sir.

A Stelatis is pulling out of next month's Chicago auto show as it reevaluates its approach to vehicle expo's.

Automaker, citing last fall's UAW strike, pulled up of the specialty equipment marketing association show and the LA auto show late last year, in addition to next week's CES event in Las Vegas, to cut costs as part of its strike contingency plan.

The only demonstration Stelatis will have at the Houston show is an outdoor ride and drive for some vehicles, according to Rochelle Salinas, executive vice president of the Houston Automobile Dealers Association that organizes the event.

Salinas said the ride and drive is executed by an experimental company in direct relation with Stelatis, not its dealers.

However, we are all disappointed by their decision, salinas said, about pulling out of the show.

However, we are grateful we had their participation for so long and are empathetic to their situation after the strike.

We hope they will return in full force in 2024.

25.

No more camp jeep huh.

No more camp jeep and a bummer.

Yeah, I know None of that.

So it's going to be a big gaping maw on the show floor where that was.

I'm sure that they'll fill generally across the aisle from that.

Maybe they'll just give us that space.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, can you imagine?

So we can have a live audience.

Yeah, that's right.

I'm sure we'll fill up the arena.

Not All right Time now for a quick break and I want to remind everybody that you're on the In Wheel Time car talk show and want to thank you for joining us on this Saturday morning for our live show.

Stay tuned, we'll be right back.

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The original group of loopy tortilla restaurants will have you telling your family and friends just what the original recipes mean when it comes to the best fajitas in southeast Texas.

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About this episode

Dive into the exciting world of SCCA road racing and autocross with Richard Tomlin, who shares insights on how anyone can participate in these thrilling events. Discover the evolution of car culture, including the importance of tire pressure, suspension tuning, and the various classes available for competitors. The episode also highlights upcoming events, including a major national race in New Orleans, and features a unique discussion on innovative road safety technologies like glow-in-the-dark markings. Tune in for a blend of technical advice and community spirit in grassroots racing.

BMW 3 Series Chevrolet Camaro Chevrolet Corvette Fiat 500 Ford Falcon Holden Commodore Honda CR-V Mazda MX-5 / Miata Volkswagen Golf

Original notes

Unleash your inner speed demon with expert insights from road racing guru Richard Tomlin as we explore the thrill of SCCA road racing and autocross. Let your passion for high-speed adventure find its home on the track, where legends cut their teeth and everyday drivers sharpen their skills. This episode doesn't just share the secret sauce to joining the racing community; it hands you the keys to a world where tire pressure and alignment are not just maintenance chores, but the alchemy of victory. And if you've wondered why BMWs flock to Richard's shop, Apex Auto, after the holidays, we've got that mystery revved up and ready to roll.

Fasten your seatbelt for a drive down memory lane where whimsical car options reflect the evolution of our love affair with automobiles. From in-car record players to the avant-garde espresso machines of the Fiat 500, we pay homage to the quirky touches that define car culture. Moreover, we navigate the changing landscape of auto shows, examining what Stellantis' departure from the Chicago event means for the future of these car showcases. Whether you're a motorsport newbie or a track veteran, you'll find something to fuel your automotive enthusiasm in this episode's high-octane conversation.

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