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GHiT 0720: Ryan Susca WINS
GHiT 0720: Ryan Susca WINS
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About this episode
Ryan Suska shares his journey to winning the overall at the 24 Hours of Lemons race at Thompson Motor Speedway, highlighting the challenges of racing, team dynamics, and car prep. He discusses the importance of sacrifice, teamwork, and perseverance in motorsports, along with technical details about his BMW race car and trailer setup. The episode also touches on the unpredictable nature of endurance racing, the thrill of close competition, and plans for future races. Ryan’s candid insights into balancing racing with family life and the realities of grassroots motorsport make for an engaging conversation.
Topics:
24 hours of lemons
endurance racing
teamwork
race car preparation
BMW 328 race car
racing challenges
arrive and drive
race strategy
motorsport lifestyle
race trailer setup
GHiT 0720: Ryan Susca WINS
Racing in an endurance race is not 100% skill, there is a large amount of luck involved. Added to this, when you have large fields, the odds are literally stacked against you. However, past guest and teammate was able to upgrade from GHiT and won the overall race at the 24 Hours of Lemons event at Thompson and we had to get all the details and congratulate him on the win. Hopefully more to come.
A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/Thompson2025WINNER
We hope you enjoy this episode!
If you would like to help grow our podcast and high-performance driving and racing:
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Best regards,
Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, Jeremy, and Bill
Hosts of the Garage Heroes in Training Podcast and Garage Heroes in Training racing team drivers
We hope you enjoy this episode!
If you would like to help grow our podcast and high-performance driving and racing:
You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, YouTube, etc.
Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate very much. Even better, a podcast review would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.
Best regards,
Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, Jeremy, and Bill
Hosts of the Garage Heroes in Training Podcast and Garage Heroes in Training racing team drivers
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"...g experience Miata, they did the whole ode to the super bird, super bird with the big wing and the paint."
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"...that team that came out of nowhere with that gray 240SX, they just had a bunch of hot shoes in the car."
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Hey, Jeremy, you know those race cars you're busy building?
Yeah, I do.
I got one that I'm looking at every day.
You know what I don't see you working on?
You don't see me working on the amazing Sentinel system yet.
That's true.
It would take all of my life.
It would take all of my life.
It would take all of my life.
It would take all of my life.
It would take all of my life.
That's true.
It would take all of 10 minutes for you to have one.
And it's very quick and easy to install.
It is.
It is.
And we could watch you when we are not at the race with you and see how you're doing.
And then we can call you up when you get out of the car and tell you everything you did wrong.
And I love that because so many years I've been driving and not been able to see what I'm doing.
I know.
And now we can.
I know.
What I have to do with the video, my most favorite thing is I take the video and I load it on YouTube.
And then I send it to my coach and say, look at 26 minutes and 17 seconds.
Look at this one lap and tell me what I can do better.
And every single time, you know what they say?
Everything.
Exactly.
Precisely.
So with the Sentinel system, you get instantaneous feedback plus useful feedback that unfortunately
accurate for my driving.
I think it's accurate for all of our driving.
Pretty much.
Yeah.
That's probably true.
Yeah.
But you need to get one in your car, sir.
Yes, I do.
And with the discount code that you're going to tell everybody they can save 10% on this
awesome system.
Yeah.
Trouble free.
I haven't had an issue getting video every time we've gone out with the Sentinel.
It's always worked.
Can't say the same for some of the other systems we've tried.
So I don't know.
On the podcast notes down there.
Don't do it while you're driving though.
We'd like to have our listeners live.
It's good.
Who hoped to one day be the world's greatest driving heroes created from the cosmic legends
of the universe comes our team captain, the vision, Bill Fisher.
And there soon to be Wonder Woman, Vicki Fisher and our captain Marvel and head
flight trainee Jennifer script.
Their mission to fight injustice, share what is right and wrong to get you out of your house
and come out racing with them and serve all mankind.
They are the garage heroes in training team.
Welcome to the garage heroes and training podcast.
I'll be one of our hosts for this episode.
My name is Bill.
Who else is hosting?
I'm Vicki.
We have somebody as a guest who might as well be a host.
He's on so often.
He's raced with us.
He did a thing a couple of weeks ago.
He did a thing.
Did a thing?
He did a thing.
So this is the mental, the inside the mental mind of one of our teammates who may not,
you know, remember us back when, you know, after what he did.
He's like, you know, I've been doing this for a long time.
You know, I've been trying real hard.
I've been putting out a lot of effort.
I've been, I've been banging my wall, my head against this wall, banging my wall against
this head, whichever.
I'm tired of this.
I really just want to win.
You know what I got to do?
I got to ditch those garage heroes and training and upgrade and get some real teammates.
And that's what I did.
And he won.
Welcome back to the podcast.
Ryan Suska.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thompson champion.
So, so Ryan, let's start off exactly where you were.
Where'd you go?
You were born in a very young age.
I went to 24 hours of lemons race at Thompson Motor Speedway in Connecticut.
This is a little over a week now.
Yeah.
I went as an arriving drive driver with the varying cream motorsports.
Although I've done now three races in a row with these guys.
So I hope I'm a little bit more than an arriving driver.
I had a really great run with them.
I mean, I ran with them.
Thompson last year was the first time.
And I just like complete flu because my team kind of bailed on me for the team that I
was supposed to drive with bailed on me.
And now we're here.
Oh, so Thompson is notorious.
Notorious for its weather.
For many things.
It was glorious.
Right.
It was the one weekend.
What was the weather like outside?
If anybody doesn't know Thompson.
It was it was in the fifties at night.
So you actually need to do the sweatshirt or like, what the heck is this?
And you know, he brings a sweatshirt.
The low eighties.
Oh my gosh.
It was amazing.
So if anybody doesn't know Thompson in in August, August, right?
It is it is majority of the time it is miserable.
It is so freaking hot.
The air doesn't move wickedly humid that part of part of race prep while you're there
and managing is just managing body temperature.
It's it's pretty rough.
And this was the one weekend that we didn't attend.
It happened to be gorgeous weather.
I did.
I did.
You can't pay for weather like that at Thompson.
No, no.
You can't.
No, there was times that when we were at Thompson, I've actually seen other teammates
showering themselves in the rain with a bar.
So I saw them in the parking lot.
Yeah.
I think actually I think it was a libertarians.
The Lamentarians.
Yeah, I think it was Lamentarians.
So I mean, that's that's really kind of I wouldn't put it past.
The knuckleheads.
At least, you know, if they had clothes on in the shower, I mean, in the rain
shower or something.
So Mr. Suska, this wasn't your first race.
Nope.
Care to guess how many you've done?
Well, I know how many I've done.
And I know I've spent a lot of money and converted it into, you know,
burnt up tires and noise.
Yeah.
Done 30 lemons races now.
33.
If you count AER and champ and AER and Lucky Dog races.
That doesn't seem right.
I thought I did more non lemons with you than that already.
We did AER and we did.
We did Lucky Dog at CMP.
We did AER pit race.
And that was it.
And then I did an AER run with Mr. Pete and his Civic this year.
It just seemed like you had more than that.
So, so 30 something races.
Tired of being held down by those garage heroes and training and your
former teammates.
And you decided to, you know, excuse me, I'm going to use my
lemons airline miles and I'm going to upgrade and get some
people who actually know how to drive.
Job well done, sir.
Thank you.
I was, I won't say it's a fluke.
It was a well-prepared car.
It is a pile of spare parts.
It is a franking car.
It's not even a franking car.
It's just, it is a car built on no money built on other race
teams' spare parts.
These dudes got lucky.
They've got used diffs online, diff from somebody.
I think they bought, they got some used springs and they
bought some Bilstein struts and shocks for it.
Got some wheels off another team.
Got some unknown sway bars off another team, you know, cobbled
together their own diff cooler.
And that's a, and it's got a really nice exhaust on it.
And that's about all the car has.
It's nothing fancy.
And it's just a bunch of FCP Euro parts for warranty stuff.
It's, it's crazy how, how little they have into the car
and how dialed it was that we, that weekend.
Well, as anybody who's competed in one nose, you know,
driving a good car is, is only part of it.
Having good drivers is only part of it.
There's a whole lot of other stuff that goes into it.
And you know, we've only won, I mean, we're not at your level,
Ryan.
We've only won class victories and, and, and dress up victories
and, and you screwed up victories.
We haven't ever won overall.
So does it stay the same?
Is it still just, you know, as Jeff Wakeman once put it,
you know, getting everything right is still only a lottery ticket.
Absolutely.
We went out, we were second place on Sunday.
Went out and it was a slow and mellow Ethan John up front.
And we were, we were going back and forth all, all night,
Saturday, Saturday night and a little bit on Sunday morning.
They were hemming and hauling about who they were sending out.
And my team knew that, oh, we're going to send Ryan out.
I'm like, okay, that's cool. Great. I appreciate it.
And Ethan finally said, yeah, I'm going to go.
I'm like, well, good luck, Van.
Let's go have some fun, right?
Cause it's all going to come down to luck, right?
Cause that's all it's ever going to be one wreck, one bad move
and your wife out for the weekend, traffic, whatever.
Yeah. And, and unfortunately they, uh, they lost a hub
about an hour into the race and, and they got it,
they got it fixed and they were back out and like no time,
but I think they finished in fifth or sixth place,
something like that.
I'm still really good, but yeah, I was unfortunate.
Him and I had, uh, oh,
the best battle I've ever had in my life. Um,
it was a race within a race and it was just,
it was really cool when you can push yourself that hard
and you know the guy you're racing with and you know that
we're going to give each other the space to screw up a little bit
and, and not be upset if we, you know, bump and tap
and do a few little things here and there.
Um, no bumping and tapping actually happened,
but we, we, we left nothing.
Out on the track and it was everything our cars had,
uh, for about an hour.
I passed him once and then he got me back and then stayed
in front of me, but I was all over his rear bumper as long
as I could be for an hour and it was amazing.
That sounds like fun.
Was it more exciting than when the trailing arm stuck
into the ground going across the kink at CMP?
Well, I mean, it's a different level of exciting.
You know, one is like, oh my God, this is amazing.
That was like, oh my God, I'm going to die.
Um, yeah, that's a, that's a really good way to launch
your car in the air.
Very high.
So luckily we did not have that issue, but, uh, it
could have been a whole lot worse, but so, so you've
raced with your own team.
You've raced with a couple of, actually a couple of your
own teams, I guess would be the better way to put it.
And I rebuilt my team twice.
Yeah.
Three versions of my team.
Yeah.
He raced with some idiots.
They would have a podcast and talk a lot about racing, but
don't really do anything with those guys.
And then you raced with this team.
So what have you learned?
What, what has Obi-Wan learned over the years, being a
champion of lemons overall, not even like a piece, the
whole thing?
What have you learned that you would, that you would
look back on to, to young Ryan or perhaps a friend
of yours who says, Hey, I want to get into this
lemons races.
What do you think?
What should I do?
Man.
Um, racing is, it is extremely hard.
Um, not, not just the racing and not just being at
the event.
It is, it is a hard lifestyle to have.
I mean, especially, you know, for me, right?
When I first, when I, my first race was like three
weeks before I got married.
Um, and then through having kids and home
renovations and work and it's, it's a hard thing to
keep up a hobby like racing.
Um, to anyone, just be prepared.
Like you, you're going to have to make sacrifices
in your life.
Like, you know, you might not get to travel as
often as you want, or you might not have, you
know, the nicest daily driver because you spend
all of your money on your race car and things
like that.
Um, just know what is important to you.
And if it is racing, understand that things are
going to have to go by the wayside.
I mean, obviously you're going to have to make,
they can choose like, you know, I try and almost
put my kids in front of racing.
I will admit Thompson weekend.
It was my son's birthday at the same time.
I was racing when it was on my son's birthday,
but my wife came down with the kids, right?
And we still had a good time.
They got to see, they got to see me race.
We got to go do pizza and, you know, ice cream
and mini golf and separate from the track,
but it was a sacrifice I had to make.
Um, cause that race isn't all that often.
It just happened to line up with my son's birthday.
Not everyone would pick that, uh, going that route in life.
So it's, you have to understand what your priorities are
and, and stick to your guns is the, the,
the biggest thing I can, I can tell anyone.
Yeah, balancing everything and trying to be,
you can try to be good at racing or you can try
to be good at everything else, but trying to be
good at both will suck you dry.
Yes.
It's, it's just, you know, commitment.
Yeah.
I mean, part of the reason why I've had to rebuild my team
twice is I've had, you know, teammates who've,
they've taken their career route, right?
That, that is, that is the thing that defines them,
their work, their career, and they couldn't put
the time into the car.
And I'm like, Hey buddy, you know, I love you.
I love racing with you, but if the work is the
thing you're going to pick, it's time for us
to go different ways because there's a car here
and there's other teammates that want to do this
and, and you're, you're kind of dragging us all down with you.
Yeah.
I think the, the one thing that I always count on,
cause you know, we started this much older than you
and most people actually, but the one thing I can
count on, you know, not a hundred percent,
but you know, high, high percentage is when
the family starts, like, especially when the kids
are little, little racing is so hard.
You need a rock, an undeniable rock or a lunatic
who also races to be, you know, your partner
to, to even think about going to the track again
for, so there's this little.
He's the undeniable rock.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So let's see.
Thompson.
So, so there was a bunch of people who didn't go.
I mean, obviously we didn't go, but they were never
competing for overall anyway.
So no loss there.
Yeah.
It was surprising how many teams weren't there.
Yeah.
Really?
Who were the overdogs for this weekend?
Obviously Sloan Mella, for sure.
Sloan Mella was up there.
Interesting story.
I'll, I'll take it a little detour.
So we go up to the judges and Judge Janice
and Judge Manny are there talking with us.
Yeah.
Adam, one of the teammate team,
guys on the team is talking with him and he's being coy.
Right.
And they're asking, oh, how about you?
Oh, you know, we did, we did pretty well.
You know, we don't have a fuel cell.
So we can't go as long as the teams that are typically
in top 10 and, you know, being kind of, kind of,
kind of dumb.
And they keep asking how well we did in the last race
and now we're did okay.
You know, kind of things could have been better.
Right.
Had one penalty.
Finally, they really need to just like, how'd you do?
We got second in the last race.
No.
You didn't pull the one card I like to pull.
It's like, you know, we don't come to limits to compete.
I honestly don't even remember.
Yeah.
So they go to us, they go to us.
You know, the winers were tired of them winning.
They got a six.
You guys, they gave them the Bavarian cream.
We got, we got Bavarian cream donuts
dip in Springfield and outside of Springfield,
which is the tuition out there.
So they were very happy with that bribe.
And they said, uh, whatever you do,
you better make this race.
Damn interesting.
And gave us a zero and let us walk zero.
Like, okay.
We made the next, the second day.
Interesting for sure.
I was going to say that.
It was a lot of sizing in the top, in the top five.
Right.
So it was a Sloan mellow was up there.
Both of the Johnston's motor sports FRS's were up there.
Hit him with the Heim like back and forth and back and forth.
And they ended up breaking.
Yeah.
I saw them on Saturday a lot.
Yep.
Uh, who else was,
who else was up there?
Man, I'm drawing a blank right now.
I can look it up.
But what fun would that be?
I hate looking stuff up on the podcast.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was a, it was a,
some usual suspects up there,
but definitely some,
some different guys up front this year.
Again,
because they were at, I mean, you guys for one,
Lamentarians weren't there with their cars.
Um,
three pedal was a one car.
Three pedal was a, yeah.
Three pedal was running one car.
No cheese car.
No, no Tauley RX seven.
Um,
the,
the guys with the metal and Tegra, they weren't there.
Um,
I have run with this guy, Jim McGuire.
And he's up in the, the Glamping.
I wonder why?
I don't lie.
I just didn't have to.
Why?
I don't lie.
I just didn't have cars together this year.
I don't know.
I don't know.
That gave you guys an edge.
There was only 96 cars,
which is unheard of.
Thompson's usually 115 plus.
Yeah.
Usually 120 is kind of the rock out.
Right.
There was paddock space this year.
We're like, wow, like stretched out.
Like we aren't packed up around the garage.
She's like, this is weird.
Wow.
So, um,
could you take a deeper dive on the car that you were driving?
Sure.
It was a 90.
Oh boy.
I'm going to get caught up on this.
92 or 93.
Uh, BMW 328.
Uh, so E 36.
It's got a OBD 1, 3,
M52 motor in it.
With just a basic intake and a basic exhaust.
Nothing fancy.
Um, big radiator because BMWs have crappy cooling systems.
Um, stock stock transmit stock manual transmission,
upgraded diff with a diff cooler.
Um, like I said, struts and springs,
some unknown sway bars.
And running 245, uh,
Contis on it.
Other than that, that's about it.
It's done up to, uh, it's the old, uh,
Listerine car from, oh man.
Was it the British touring car series?
What?
It was a.
It was a delivery from back in the early 90s.
And it was a team that was infamous for,
it was drugs and something else that they were known for.
So they, they, they,
Yeah, I know.
They told me the whole story and I, I,
it's slipping my mind, but we, you know, had the,
all right.
You know, our,
our getup is the nineties.
I did this wind suits, right?
So the,
the pale greens and purples and right.
It was, it's quite a look when you go through,
you go through tech.
So did your vehicle perform?
Was it butts and seats all the whole time?
Or did you have any issues?
It was butts and seats.
And then Ryan had to,
Ryan had to drag out some work math.
Um, we were having enough.
We're having nothing, but if, yeah,
we were having nothing but issues with the diff cooler.
So the, the diff cooler uses the factory fill and drain
fittings.
And you replace the plugs with, with just these,
they're supposed to be cross-washer to A N.
Fitting adapters.
They, you know, they're a younger team.
They're learning, right?
There's, there's a certain, uh,
pay to play and they're like, well,
we can get away with these O-ring style ones.
Well, the O-rings don't like being crushed.
No.
They get, they get crushed and then they split
and then they start leaking.
So Friday after practice,
it is the whole bottom of the cars coated in gear oil.
Oh no.
Hold it all apart.
That was like half a quart in a like a two,
two and a half quart system.
Found some O-rings that we thought might work.
Slammed it all together.
Ran the race.
Or Teflon taped the threads.
Slam the whole thing together.
Come down at the end of the race the next day.
Over it in oil.
No.
I almost failed again.
Crap.
And it had again that same like half a quart.
Oh my God.
We're on the vertical.
You just see,
you just see it a crush washer, right?
Well, the,
you needed a fitting that was made for a crush washer.
This fitting was made for an O-ring.
Oh.
So they bought the fittings that were like $10.
They needed to buy the $50 fittings.
I came with the O-rings and they,
now they're like, God, okay.
I see why you have to pay the money.
Like it wasn't.
So anyways,
so Saturday ends again,
there's like barely any fluid in the thing.
And you could just feel it's like nuclear,
nuclear level hot when it came off the track.
This is good.
Teflon tape on the threads,
new O-rings,
and then we just coated
the outsides of the fittings in as much permatex as we could
and attempt to keep them sealed up.
It's only five hours.
So that was like, yeah, it's only five hours.
It's got to make it.
And then I get out of the car midday.
I ran like two hours,
45 or so in the car on Sunday.
So one stops or Sunday?
One stop for Sunday.
Smart.
I get out of the car.
We go to put Andrew in the car
and Adam looks underneath the car
and he's like, it's wet all over.
Oh, no.
Wet all over.
Oh, no.
He's like, it's, you know,
I'm over the wall.
I'm like dying because of the race I just ran.
And he's talking to me.
He's like, there's probably like a solid 15 drips on the ground
in that three minutes.
And I'm like, all right, let me take a drink.
Okay.
You're talking to a guy who specializes in oil
and fuel for work.
All right.
So 30 drips is in a CC.
You had 15 drips in three minutes.
Okay.
Let's do the math.
Okay.
Let's factor in for uncertainty.
So I did the math and I'm like, okay.
So this says that in five hours, we're going to lose.
If I'm, if I'm, if I'm good,
we're going to lose like four tenths of a, of a court.
If I'm bad, we're going to lose like.
Nine tenths to maybe one court.
If I'm, if I'm not far off.
And I'm like, and it's a two and a half court system.
I think we're okay because Adam and Marcus were like,
they were like this close to pulling the car and.
Trying to fill it.
I'm like, you have to do is fill it right.
But then you're dead.
You're dead.
You're done.
Right.
Cause you have to take the,
you have to take the upper hose off the dip.
You have to fill the dip.
You have to put it back on.
You have to reseal it.
I'm like, and it's going to be insanely hot.
So you're not going to be able to touch it for five minutes.
So I'm like, so we're done.
If we come in, we're done.
So I did the math and I said, trust the math.
I do this every day.
You did it the day before.
I mean, we did it the day before.
They're like, yeah, okay.
Okay.
And then we're like, we're not calling them in, right?
I don't know.
We're not calling them in.
We're going to sit there,
fingers crossed for the race.
And yeah,
he's coming in on the hook of shame or nothing.
Cause they were worried that the diff was going to just explode.
And I'm like, well, it's not going to explode.
Like the opinion bearing is going to get dry.
And then it's going to start how like,
and you're going to know something's starting to check out.
It's not just going to be fine.
And then just lock up and let go.
So it's going to be some indication.
Luckily,
opinion bearing stayed lubricated and we won the race.
So how much juice did they have to put in it after the race?
They didn't even check.
We threw it on the trailer.
We didn't care.
We didn't care.
We've went trophy.
We don't care.
Correct, correct fittings ordered.
Good plan.
That's a good plan.
Yeah.
Some places in racing,
you can save money in some places you should never save money.
That's one.
And safety is the other for sure.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Don't save money.
You have to, you know, don't get pooled noodles.
Get the real pad.
Get the real stuff.
Yes.
Because pooled noodles aren't padding.
They feel like padding until you're in an accident.
And then it feels like a solid steel bar.
And the bar wins.
You know, just in case anybody was curious.
So let's see.
So what made this race different?
Was it circumstance?
Was it the way you guys rifted around the track?
Was it driving?
Was it the car?
Was it, you know, was it kind of everything?
Team players not there.
I'll put it this way.
One of the team, one of the guys said we were a bunch of,
of oddly shaped gears that all managed to fall into the right
place and everyone had a role and everything just happened to
work out.
Okay.
All right.
So you're retiring after this?
You got your victory.
Good.
No, no, I'm currently trying to find a seat for,
for Loudon.
I don't have one right now.
Cause those guys, those guys don't run with all four in Loudon.
Where'd they locate it out of?
Uh, they're a little over place.
Two are in Connecticut.
One's up, one's up in Massachusetts.
So I'm kind of in the middle of all of them.
So that happens to work out nice.
I mean, it's two hours.
They're, they're doing, one of them's traveling.
One of them's going to Germany for a couple of weeks.
So there's, there's some race money, you know,
another one just had a kid.
So.
Oh yeah.
There's that.
Yeah.
There's that.
So they're, they're a few years behind me in terms of the pain of racing.
Uh, Adam is Adam's been racing about as long as I have,
he was racing with another team and then formed this team.
So he, he's, he's fully experienced.
So that's awesome.
It was, uh, we were very excited to see that you had one.
Um, we actually didn't know until late in the race,
who was on that team.
So it was like, oh, look, look who it is.
And then we saw your post after and it's like, okay,
time for a podcast.
So, you know, it doesn't take a whole lot for us to do a podcast.
As you know.
No, no, it doesn't.
No, it's like, what are we going to talk about?
I don't know.
We'll wing it.
It'll be fun.
It'll be fine.
But I do have to say the, the, the, the,
the thinking of everyone on Facebook,
I could tell by how, how the length and how you're,
it was like winning the Oscar.
I'd like to think, but I do have to say,
I could just tell that that was a long time coming for you.
Oh yeah.
Quite, quite a long time.
Like I said, there were,
there were nights I was ready to give it up back in the,
yeah, 20, 2021 timeframe.
I was not that long ago.
I remember you were like,
Oh man.
Yeah.
I was, I was ready to give it up, but yeah,
I remember.
We rely on your,
you're being stupid enough to keep going, Ryan.
Don't worry.
We never thought you were leaving.
Yeah.
I remember that the, um, your, your, the,
the one team that you had kind of blew up just in
Joan, just kind of blew up.
And that kind of sucked.
Yeah.
That's a definite kick in the teeth when it does.
Yeah.
It is.
It's like now what?
So,
so do you have this internal drive to go win in the Miata now?
Is that,
is that the,
is that the scratch that needs to be itched or the,
yeah, whatever.
I stayed up way too late.
Yeah.
The, uh,
as much as it pains me to admit it,
the Miata could never be competitive again in lemons.
If it stays the way it is.
Um,
the speed creep has just been too much since that car was
first built.
Right.
I built that car in 2014 now.
Um,
had that car, that car placed seventh at Thompson in
20,
2017,
2016,
one of those years.
Um,
yeah,
that's a seventh.
Then it's not seventh now though.
Seventh.
Yeah.
Seventh then is not seventh now by any means.
Okay.
Cause it did a,
did an 11th or did a 15th at 11th and did a seventh at Thompson.
It's that,
that car is built for Thompson.
Um,
yeah.
It's just not,
it can't hang with the BMW.
It can't hang with the BMWs down the front straightaways or even,
even off the corners, right?
Yeah.
That car,
that car is built to be hurled into a corner at
inappropriate speeds that when you're running with the
rookie crowds that we're running with,
uh,
it's really hard to do that.
Um,
and the judge is kind of thrown upon it.
I mean, I get it, right?
That's not,
that's why there aren't that many competitive Miata's and
lemons anymore.
They're,
I should say there have been,
but a lot of teams who do that,
uh,
are been politely asked to not come back or to refrain in that part
of the driving.
Um,
because that's when you have a momentum car,
that's how you have to drive it.
And unless you have a field of drivers that are used to that,
it's,
you know,
things are,
things are bound to happen.
I can't tell you how many times I've rebuilt the front bumper
on that car because of that.
Plus you've got,
uh,
fuel duration issues.
And
if you make the car faster,
you start to find other weak spots.
Yeah.
That's,
I've talked to a couple guys out in the Midwest
and out in California.
And I,
you know,
I think there's a magical combination to
give that car a little more power
and put a few or so in it.
And make it more competitive,
still keep the rest of the drive line the same.
Uh,
keep the brakes the same.
Uh-huh.
It's just, uh,
it's the cost to entry right now.
I've got,
I've,
I'm going to say,
I want to say completely rebuilt,
but I've got a guy who was a previous arrive in drive.
He's now decided to become a full fledged team member.
So we are actually slowly rebuilding the car.
Um,
bought in close trailer late last year.
And we've been going through that, getting it all ready.
And now we've switched gears to the car.
So we, uh,
got some new coilovers on it.
We're redoing a lot of the body.
We have a,
an absolutely awesome idea for theming.
Uh,
I am not blowing it and saving it till next year when the car is,
uh,
when the car is ready.
Um,
so we're,
we're just going to kind of pick up where it is,
make a couple of little improvements,
but it's,
it needs a motor and a fuel cell to be on the podium.
Yeah.
And then,
you know,
a little help from the judges because,
you know,
they're not going to look upon a Miata that way and say,
oh yeah,
zero.
No.
Well,
there was a,
there was a B class Miata this year.
Really?
There was the,
one four.
One,
one,
yeah,
four,
four,
three,
three Richard,
Richard Petty racing experience.
Okay.
Uh,
baby blue,
you know,
early Jen Miata,
just like mine.
Um,
they were,
they were a B car,
which is,
I think with the speed creep,
that's appropriate.
Yeah.
Miata now they're,
they're,
yeah,
you could win B,
but you're not an A for sure.
You're,
you're not an,
you're not an A when you have,
not an A winner.
You're,
you're properly,
a good team and the car is well put together.
Yeah.
But 25 doesn't win.
25 doesn't win races.
It,
25 is fun.
It might not win B.
I mean,
it probably won't win B actually.
So.
No,
I think B was,
I think the B winner was seventh.
Yeah.
It's usually top 10,
maybe 15.
If it's weird.
Yeah.
But,
you know,
I mean there's been C cars that have won in top 10.
Yeah.
I mean that was,
you know,
speaking of luck,
Pete Adams and his team,
they were poised to win,
win B.
And then they just got,
they got hit pretty hard by a C class car battling.
No way.
God knows what position he was coming around the outside and
they hit him and blew out the whole right rear corner of the
car on him.
He was like,
he was like 45 minutes at the end of the race,
leading by a couple of laps and gone.
Yeah.
He's been trying so hard with that,
with that focus.
That's that look thing.
Yep.
Nothing you can do about it sometimes,
but you know,
go for the,
go for the maybe and then see if we'll see what happens.
Roll the dice.
Roll the dice.
So,
uh,
Vicki,
before I switch to topics,
do you have anything else on this race?
Um,
I am kind of curious what else you've seen out there,
but I'm just curious about what I missed.
Um,
were there any good themes at this particular race?
Uh,
I thought there were some pretty good NASCAR parodies.
I really enjoyed.
Yeah.
There was a team with a Thunderbird that did the old,
uh,
Sterling Marlin course, except it was pores theme.
Oh, I sold that one.
Yeah.
That was,
that was pretty good.
The Richard Petty driving experience Miata,
they did the whole ode to the super bird,
super bird with the big wing and the paint.
And they did,
they did that pretty good.
Um,
Oh,
I was just there for,
uh,
some, uh,
I'll say some,
some,
not so much a theme,
but just some lemons,
creativity.
There was a,
on Sunday,
there was a,
um,
a,
a tractor.
No,
it wasn't a tractor.
It was a mini bike,
pulling a golf cart,
pulling three lemons cars.
Oh,
Oh,
pulling them all up to grid because the motors couldn't be,
you can't start the engine.
I'm like, that's,
that's lemons in a nutshell right there.
Like,
yeah,
that was pretty cool.
Well,
thank you for updating me on what I missed because I did kind of miss the
race.
Yeah,
you guys couldn't be there.
I know.
See what happens.
We don't go into weather is perfect.
We've missed two of these so far and the weather's been spectacular.
We go there and it's like 99 degrees and 99% humidity.
Yeah.
So,
anyway,
um,
so you mentioned you got an enclosed trailer.
So,
uh,
given that we've already had a podcast on what to do with RVs and what to do
it,
what's Ryan doing with his trailer?
I know you're not leaving it in an empty box.
No,
no.
Um,
Oh,
so took it apart,
cleaned it all up,
stripped all of the contact paper off the inside,
painted the whole interior.
Pulled the old roof vent out,
moved that up towards the nose of it.
So put the roof vent with the fan back in in the original location.
I put an AC unit off of the camper.
I stripped out,
um,
put in a full 16 foot awning on the,
on the passenger side of it.
I have a nice awning that,
that folds out.
Um,
it originally had a full DC system with a single plug to bring it
into the car.
Um,
it had a single plug to run some like overhead lights and like one
outlet.
Um,
and it had solar panels.
The solar panels got stolen when the previous.
Yeah,
someone stole solar panels off the roof for trailer.
That's like, that's impressive.
Um,
so because half that system was missing,
I stripped it all out and put in a bigger battery and I,
and the process of stripping out that camera for the AC unit,
I stripped the whole power system out of it.
So I grabbed the whole.
Everything.
So now it's got a 30 amp camper plug on it.
So I have all the power to run the AC and a whole bunch of
outlets inside.
Um,
and I have an AC to DC inverter and then a DC to AC inverter.
So I can make power of multiple ways.
Um,
I added in.
Tail jacks built into the floor so I can put them down and
load the car without the trailer being attached to a truck,
which that's, that's nice.
Yeah.
Cause the trailer now doubles as my car storage.
So my car's not taken up the garage.
Um, so I can load the trailer.
All, you know,
the trailer only gets hooked up to a truck a couple of times a
year, but it's storage year round.
Um, see what else they do.
I cleaned up the,
I cleaned the whole roof off,
discusified it.
I did a whole, um,
silicone coating,
a white silicone coating on the, on the roof of it.
To help seal it back up cause it started to have a couple of
leaks over the years.
Um,
that and keep it cooler cause white instead of a black roof
now.
Um,
in a black roof.
Well, it was a,
it was a one piece aluminum and it was,
it's just got that,
that dark gray shock.
Oxidize gray.
Oxidize.
So it,
it could get pretty righteously hot in there.
Um,
Um,
just going through it,
making sure the bearings are all good,
working on other little layering sins that I'm fixing from
previous owners and.
Yeah, we're doing that too.
Only we're not doing it cause we don't know how to do it.
We got somebody else doing it, but you know,
usual stuff.
Um,
so are you going to have the,
the drive up ramp thing so you can work on the car in
the trailer with the car elevated or are you,
or are you staying planer?
So I got lucky with this one,
the previous owner put pockets in the floor.
So I've got four pockets that are like six by three ish.
So the floor panels lift up and they're about 18 inches deep.
So all my spare parts store under the floor,
under the car, which is really cool.
So I don't know if I'm going to build those ramps just because
like part of the ramp is to be able to store stuff underneath
it.
I don't need that now.
Um,
that and it's a lightweight trailer.
It's only a 7,000 pound trailer.
Um,
to wait,
wait matters.
So you're not going to go by L half way from Jeremy then?
Is that what you're saying?
No, no, no, no.
I was never, I was never planning on buying L half way.
Never planning on buying L half way.
Rumor, rumor has it it might be for sale.
We don't know.
I don't,
he's also talked about trying to go for a B class one and
then truck.
He, he, he, he's, you know,
talked about maybe me, Nick and him in New Hampshire.
So I got to give him a call.
What's good?
What are we doing?
Oh no, I haven't,
I haven't talked to Jeremy in months.
He's disappeared.
Uh, but I don't know.
He's, he keeps going back and forth with,
I got to get rid of it.
Not going to win.
So somewhere in between.
Yep.
Probably end up.
That's all right.
So,
so you got a new team.
Maybe you got to arrive and drive team.
That's,
that seems to be working pretty well for you.
What's your,
what's your plans?
You're going to try to do New Hampshire.
New Hampshire.
Um, I'm,
I think at least with my,
my car, um,
it's probably going to be like a one race a year car for right now
until I get a larger and more serious team underneath me.
Um,
you know,
so it'll probably be two,
maybe three arrive and drive drivers when we run it.
Uh, it's just this,
it's just this guy,
Rich and I that are running it right there, you know,
crewing it right now.
Um,
you know, we'll see.
Is that Thompson or is that Jersey or what are you thinking?
I mean,
it kind of depends if things keep going well with the Bavarian cream
guys and I keep running with them and they do their normal Jersey Thompson.
Maybe the Miata becomes a Loudon car.
Listen to this guy.
If I,
if I win another overall with these guys,
you know,
you know, just, you know, one doesn't do it.
You know, that just,
you know, everyone's,
I,
I,
uh,
it's nice to be wanted.
I've lately,
I've been getting a lot of messages like,
Hey, you want to come around with me?
And I'm like,
I can only afford to run with so many cars.
Is your car up to my standard once in a while?
Ask me to work on their,
their junk and race with them.
So I may say yes.
I don't know.
Those guys are crap.
Stay away from those guys.
They don't know what they're doing.
Anyway,
Miss Vicki,
you didn't,
you didn't go to Thompson.
You, uh, your friend won.
Are you the,
are you the bad luck charm?
No,
I don't think so.
I just think he had a really great opportunity and he took it,
took it right to the,
and he took it and he ran with it.
Took the checker.
I know that is so awesome.
It really is.
I mean,
it's been a long time coming, Ryan.
You know,
and,
and you know,
you are right when it comes to
the amount of
time that you can actually be on the track.
You really got to make the punches work for you.
And it sound like you had a really good team this time.
Yeah.
That's for sure.
I know.
They're a good group.
Nice group.
Oh yeah.
Awesome bunch of guys.
So I,
I let some of the,
the background podcast crew that,
you know,
some people work with us a lot.
I send them out and say,
Hey,
we're having Ryan on.
And sometimes they submit questions.
And this question comes in from,
from one of them.
And I'm not,
I'm not going to say who the question is,
did you just decide to go win this?
Because you saw the lamino could.
So you figured anybody can win one of these.
That was,
I mean,
I'm paraphrasing,
but that was kind of it.
So future podcast guest again,
Mr.
Lamino.
Is that the,
is that what happened?
You got motivated that you said,
if Tom can weigh enough,
what am I going to do?
Myself and the guys are like,
well,
Tom's not going to be there.
His car,
you know,
he got screwed on parts.
No,
Tom was there.
He was running in the car.
He was running in his own.
Oh yeah.
Because he was,
he was got screwed on parts.
You know,
overnight parts from Japan are,
well for him,
overnight parts from Bavaria.
Not overnight.
Yeah.
They didn't,
he got,
he got screwed on that,
that affair.
So we're like,
well Tom's not there to defend.
And they were like,
wait a minute,
there's only 96 cars.
There's a whole bunch of good cars on here.
Like,
some of the better cars weren't there.
You know,
I mean,
I'm not,
you know,
win is a win is a win.
You beat what was there.
But,
you know,
Betty wasn't there.
And that's,
of course a beast.
If they don't drink the entire weekend,
but that's fine.
Yeah.
So 50 50 on that,
but the best.
All right.
So,
so you're thinking New Hampshire,
maybe is the goal.
If I find me a seat.
Yep.
Okay.
So,
you know,
if anybody's looking for a driver who is,
one hell of a wrench,
um,
probably better engineer than wrench.
Honestly,
if you,
if you just need something fixed,
yeah,
he can do that.
But if you need something solved,
that is where we really bother Ryan.
I mean,
honestly,
we call him purge.
It's about everything,
but you know,
he only answers sometimes,
which again proves how smart he is.
That's amazing.
I,
I,
uh,
that's amazing.
I,
I cannot even imagine what it would be like to win overall.
I'm still,
you know,
we're still looking for a B.
We've got,
we've gotten C a couple of times,
but we've never gotten B.
B is hard.
I think A is easier than B.
Because you,
you have to have the car
that slots in there,
just perfect.
Yeah.
So it's gonna flipped in A,
but really it's an A car.
Just,
you know,
it's gonna be hard to judge in here,
whatever.
But
So,
um,
just for some of the listeners,
what is winning overall mean?
What,
uh,
we have the least crappiest car.
Is that,
is that what that means?
Um,
the best is crappiest car.
The best is
The best is
The best is
the most polished turd,
I believe.
It's,
it's,
it's like the largest jumbo shrimp, right?
Yeah.
Um,
yeah,
it's the car that,
it manages to run the longest,
the least amount of black flags,
the least amount of breakdowns.
You have clean pit stops.
Everything is quick.
Uh,
everything is kind of rehearsed.
And,
and nothing is,
nothing is left to chance.
You check everything
and check everything again and again and again.
Make sure you're as ready as you possibly can be.
Uh,
and,
and you go for it.
You drive like hell.
Uh,
not so much as you break the car,
but you drive like hell.
There was a lot.
Of a routine, right?
Our,
our routine kind of, we got very,
I'll say that was one thing that worked very much in our favor.
Um,
being a stock tanked car, right?
We only have like 16 gallons of 16 or 17 gallons of fuel on board.
Um,
we made the gamble of putting one of our off, you know,
I won't say anchor,
but one of our little slower driver,
but also it's very solid in traffic,
which is what you want.
We sent him out first.
Um,
on Saturday.
On Saturday.
Cause we know his fuel burn rate would be a little bit lower than everyone
else's.
And with the yellow flags and everything that really worked in our favor,
he stretched the car over three hours of running it hard,
which is,
wow.
Yeah.
He stretched it over three hours.
Um,
so then we could run a three,
then we could run a two stop.
Yeah.
So we ran two stops,
three stint.
Uh,
while we ran two stops,
three and a half stints.
So what we ended up doing was we did a splash and go on the second guy.
So I went in,
I went in and I ran,
I ran as hard reasonably hard as I could dealt with yellows and
everything.
I got another two,
I got about two 30 out of the car running it harder with less yellows.
And then Marcus was the last one and he's the hot shoe.
So we're like,
we're going to send the hot shoe and for the rest of the day,
Saturday and go clean house and go put laps in.
Um,
but he had to come in midway.
So we were,
we were like looking for a full course and a full course happened
and he came in and we got him back out.
Uh,
we lost like a half a lap on the guys we were with because of the,
the yellow and we, you know,
we just splashed six gallons of fuel in it and sent them right back out.
Wow.
After just belts or anything.
So that was,
that was that worked out.
And then we did the two stop on Sunday and that's how we made it work.
Wow.
So,
so you only just had just the only issue you had with that diff.
Yeah.
And,
and luckily it only was an issue at night.
Right.
We were able to get patch it and limp it through and deal with it every night.
And the whole,
the car performed better.
I mean,
other than that,
the car was fine.
You didn't have any issues with it.
The car was flawless.
Yeah.
So what are some of the maintenance?
I mean,
just in general that you guys managed to do when you're in the evening for that.
Just in general.
We're placing brakes and rotors because the car gets,
the car gets about an event and a half or so out of front brakes.
So we knew coming out of practice on Friday,
the brake,
the front brakes are going to be suspect for a run on the whole weekend.
So we put new brakes on it's going into Saturday.
And then we actually swapped back to the old brakes per Sunday.
So we just, you know, to finish wearing them out,
but we knew they weren't going to make this,
the 14 hours combined at the both days.
So we did things like that.
Just nut and bolt check,
played with tire pressures as temperature was changing.
Check fluids.
So,
so with the brakes,
is that the type of brakes you got?
Or is that just kind of like a standard practice for that particular vehicle?
It's a combination of the brakes they get.
The whole FCP lifetime more lifetime warranty game.
So it's whatever's in the,
but it's whatever's in the FCP catalog.
So they have,
they've got what Zimmerman rotors and Hawk DTC,
60s up front and DTC 30s out back.
They're not the pads I would go with,
but it's what's available.
They're,
they have a real high initial bite when they're cold and they trash rotors.
They do trash rotors.
So they didn't even,
when they're hot, they don't like to modulate.
Like I've always like, you know,
ST 43s are always said,
you can basically dance on the pedal at the limit and they'll,
they'll let you play with it.
The DTC 60s, they, they want nothing.
They're like, you get the limit and nothing else.
And don't you dare play around when you're near the limit.
And the rotors last forever with ST 43s.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
So every team,
every team,
I'm sorry, Bill, did you have a question?
I did.
I want to know two things.
It looks like you guys won this race after all of that racing by one minute and
17 seconds.
Mm-hmm.
But I have a, I have a question.
Why didn't you get 500 laps?
You only got 499.
I know we're like,
just let us do one more.
So every,
every team runs their,
their program a little differently.
Most of them are this, you know,
similar, similar,
but what were some of the ways that,
that this particular team ran that made things work or something that maybe
you weren't like, oh, that's really kind of cool.
How do you, or just everybody was just all in.
I mean, they, you know,
kind of being the arrive and drive driver.
I help out where I can.
I make suggestions where I can.
I don't buy any means,
force my opinions on anyone because it's, you know,
the three of them are the team.
That's their car.
Yeah.
Just here to drive.
You're, you're humble that way.
I'm humble.
I think, you know,
I think they're all,
they're all just on the same page, right?
They all knew what they wanted to do.
They, they all drive very,
fairly similarly.
They were faster than others.
They all had a common goal and they all know they were all friends
before they built the car.
So, you know, they're all in tune with each other.
Right.
As far as how, as far as how each other's things.
I wouldn't say that the program is very similar to how I would run the
car.
So to me, it kind of felt natural to me, right?
Except I wasn't the one leading the show.
So it was just, I, I brought my camper,
a couple of them stayed with me.
I cooked for the whole team.
I wrenched on the car when they needed me to wrench.
That's a fair trade.
My father-in-law, my father-in-law came with me.
So he was our gas man all weekend long,
helping out with pits,
helping out with, you know,
just anything the car needed.
So we just had a great time.
It was a lot of fun.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's one,
there's one thing I hate doing.
It's, it's getting dressed for pit stops
and the one place I hate doing it the most is Thompson.
Although this weekend was different, but still.
Voluntarily wearing that sweatsuit.
I mean, yeah, that's
not on my list.
My father-in-law to his credit is a
deputy firefighter in a volunteer company.
So jumping in a sweatsuit is
nothing unlike what he does on a daily basis.
Yeah.
Responding to fire calls.
Yeah, that probably helps.
Not as much of a pansy as I am.
So, so I'm sure that, that,
you know, Bill probably brought it up.
But what, what does it look like now for you?
What are you going to do now?
Are you going to Disney?
He's waiting for that sponsor check to go to Disney.
Yeah.
You might actually be going to Disney next year,
but that's all.
Trying to turn a work trip into a family thing as well.
No, like I said,
I'm trying to find a seat for October.
You know, it'll probably be me still doing
some arrive and drive, you know, wherever I can get
seats and you know, trying to run my car
at least one race a year for the next year or two.
And we'll kind of feel things out.
You know, my kids are still little,
so I don't think I could ever get to
the full weird, we were trying to run
a four race program as a team
with my kids were little and that was tough.
And now they're getting older and sports
and art camp and all this stuff.
Yeah.
Got to figure out where that all wants to go.
So I still want to race my car.
But the arrive and drive is nice because again,
you can just go take my money.
Yeah.
And all the prep work isn't there.
You just got to trust the people you're
handing your money to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's advantages, disadvantages and
both of them can go terribly wrong
as I think we've all proven many times.
Yes.
I've done arrive and drives where I ran
the car for 10 minutes of practice and that was it.
Yeah.
The car blew up and they're like,
we didn't bring spares.
Like you didn't bring spares.
Like you didn't think the car was
going to break.
They're like, yeah.
And they decided I want to pack up the car
and go fuck off to the Jersey Shore
for the whole weekend.
Yeah.
I'd like to thank Ryan for not
mentioning our name and that story, but that's fine.
Yeah.
You guys come prepared with fights.
Sometimes we don't have enough of them,
but we bring a ton.
We bring enough that you and Vicki say
your trailer is too full.
I know.
Shut up.
Don't bother me with logic.
It's fine.
So it's tough to draw the line
and what to bring and what not to bring.
When you know it can break and you know
how much effort you've put into the weekend
and you know how much people have spent
to put it into the weekend and you know
everything else that's gone into the weekend,
you hate to sit there and say,
yeah, I got that part.
It's back home.
I hate it.
That's what happened to poor Mr. Urie.
He snapped an axle on the Opel
and I had to go all the way home to
Pennsylvania Saturday to go pick it up
to race on Sunday.
Yeah.
He really should have called.
It's not easy finding Opel parts.
The local flaps does not have
Opel parts from the 70s.
So I think that's still a 70s car.
Yeah.
79 I think that is.
Yeah.
Sir, you came.
You saw.
You conquered.
Do we have to refer to you as a title now?
Is it like Sir Ryan Suska?
No, no, no, no.
Is this the last podcast you're doing with us?
You're looking at your MSA drive
or whatever, you know.
Going to leave us all behind.
That's right.
Can we say it?
Can we say it?
We knew you when, you know.
There's no professional racing in this guy's future.
That's for darn sure.
Oh yeah.
Welcome to the club, all three of us.
Did we do the highlights and lowlights?
I would say we didn't, Mr. Urie.
All right.
What was your highlight of the weekend besides the win?
We know the win.
Oh, that hour of racing with Ethan on Sunday, that was like.
He can drive.
And that car's fast.
Ethan can drive.
That car can get down and boogie and we just, like I said, we went at it and I've never raced
that hard for that long in my life.
And I had the car still running at the end.
Had the car still running.
I got out of the car and a little while later, him and his fiancee come rolling up to
me and she's like, you guys were so close.
I was watching you on race monitor and on the live stream.
Oh my God.
And then he looked at each other and we were just completely drained and we're like, we
got to do that again.
That's the thing.
I need one of those.
I need a dose of one of those.
I haven't had one of those in a while.
So it's quite funny.
All right.
What was your low light?
My low light.
Besides the pocket.
I don't know.
I don't think that.
No, no, no, the low light was probably.
Doing math on.
No, the low light was Thursday night.
Setting up.
We're getting trailer all squared away.
We get it all level.
We get it all hooked up.
Fire up the generator.
Runs for about 20 minutes.
It's the bed.
And we're like, Oh no.
This is the start.
This is the start to this weekend.
This is not good.
After about two hours of tearing to the part, we found out the low,
the low oil warning sensor died and the hack is just to disconnect it.
And then the thing runs.
It's like, okay, cool.
But I'm just like, this is a bad omen.
This is a bad omen.
This is going to be the start of this weekend.
You're just like, you like know everything.
I'm jelly.
So the, uh, it has the low oil.
Pressure switch been replaced yet knowing you.
No.
Okay.
I'm going to check oil every eight to 10 hours and keep running it.
I've had it for like seven years.
It owes me nothing at this point.
That's true.
But the last thing you want is it to die in Thompson next year when it's a
bajillion degrees?
Cause it's got to make up for this year.
I was just close to upgrading to then, you know, I got a 3,500 watt one.
I was good.
This close to upgrading to the 5,000.
I was like, God, give me a reason to go drive to Harbor Freight tonight.
Miss Vicki was complaining that our generator wasn't doing what she wanted.
So I upgraded.
Boy, did I upgrade.
Then she's like, Oh my God.
It's so big.
I'm like, you said upgrade.
I upgrade.
You didn't specify.
You gave him an inch.
You gave him an inch.
He took a mile.
Make it bigger.
It's bigger.
This thing could have like a pony.
It looks like it's got a pony harness on it.
I can run the Ferris wheel.
That's all I'm saying.
I could run anything.
You tell me what city you want powered.
I got one.
It goes through gas.
Oh my God.
Does it go through gas?
But that's okay.
I haven't seen it in a while.
Where is it?
Don't worry.
Don't worry.
The last time you didn't see something, you got that little orange
coming out of the background.
So don't worry about it.
It's fine.
She's getting even bigger ones.
Yeah.
Don't be a big me out of now.
Okay.
Okay.
So, you know, Ryan, I would say that when your low light for the weekend is on Thursday
night, you had a good weekend.
That's not bad.
That's not bad.
Yeah.
Not bad.
Take the Thursday night loss.
It's fine.
It's fine.
Definitely.
Like for sure.
Any day of the week.
100%.
Great job.
Congratulations to you and your team or your arriving drive team.
Make sure you pass on our well wishes for them and tell them not to get used to this.
It'll be interesting to see if we can get a zero again.
I'm guessing probably not.
I'm thinking.
I'm thinking a two probably if I had to guess.
I was going four.
They're going to be back with the, you know, a little while from that.
I'd be like, you remember when Ryan race with us?
Do you remember how?
What happened?
Because I've got a friend of ours who wants to go racing, but they don't want to go until
they know they can win their first race.
I'm like, you're not ever going to be dead and buried.
You're never going to start.
You're never going to start.
But I'm very competitive.
I said, not if you go against these people there.
There are some crazy people out there with crazy cars.
And I don't care what you do to prep.
You are not winning your first race because you have no idea.
And they're on the West coast.
So they get car counts too.
They're like 130 car counts.
Just do the math.
There's 130 cars.
What's your chances of winning if you're even with everybody?
One in 130.
It's happened.
There was a ringer.
What was it?
New Hampshire and like 20, like 17 or 2018.
It can happen.
But you know, I'm not starting until I know I can.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But that team that came out of nowhere with that gray 240SX,
they just had a bunch of hot shoes in the car.
And we're like, where did these guys come from?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's true.
That's true.
But you know, even then car breaks.
Yep.
How many first-time cars run in the top 10 and don't break
for a whole weekend.
Not many.
I bet Yaki get the statistician known as Eric Rude to run that.
No, I can't.
He's not going to do that.
But I would bet it's very few.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So go have fun.
Have a good time.
Sunday, you can grow up and be like Ryan and win the overall.
After you beat, how'd you say it after you beat the wall
against your head?
That's right.
That's right.
I beat my wall against the head.
Yep.
That's fine.
It's fine.
I'm not tired at all.
Well, allergies don't affect me.
Oh, my daughter came up with this great thing.
She's like, I don't believe in allergies.
I'm like, okay.
Yeah, that's going to work well.
Good luck with that, my dear.
Anyway, Ryan, congratulations on the victory.
Well-earned.
Well-thought-for.
Well-done, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
That's amazing.
You know how long it's going to be before we do one of these
podcasts where we win, Miss Vicki?
Maybe next year.
Okay.
Anyway, apparently Miss Vicki has already gone off to La La Land
and is dreaming a sleepy dream right now.
I don't know.
Okay.
We'll see.
Okay.
Thank you, Ryan.
It was great talking to you and we wanted to make sure we
celebrated with you and it's amazing.
It is amazing.
That was like the, I didn't feel like I wanted to be there
until I saw that happen.
I'm like, damn it, I wanted to be there.
Yeah.
Thank you.
We got anchored.
Nice job, Ryan.
Thanks.
Nice job, Ryan.
What's up?
It's Tanner and we've gotten pretty lucky with the
weather later.
But man, it's been cold at night.
And of course the other day on one of the coldest nights of
the year, the furnace over at my friend's place goes out.
But luckily my friend's got a friend who knows the guys
over at Cornell's plumbing.
Not friends me, by the way.
And right now they've got a special just for brew
listeners.
Get a $0 service call with repair or 50 bucks off
any repair.
You just got to mention that you heard it from
Tanner on the brew.
So do what I did and trust the link.
Cornell's plumbing.
Heating in there.
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