GHiT 0724: Ethan and Jon - Review of The Thompson Race and Much More

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Captain's log supplemental.

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 10 minutes for you to have one.

And it's very quick and easy to install.

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.

You know what I'd like 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 is 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.

It's 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, Vicky Fisher.

And our Captain Marvel and head flight trainee,

Jennifer Scripchuk.

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 in training podcast.

I'm going to be the host for this episode.

And I have guests, hosts and guests.

I've got both.

I don't know what to do with myself.

I've done so many of these by myself.

Anyway, who else is hosting?

I'm Vicky.

Right?

I'm Audra.

Who?

And I'm Jeremy.

Who?

Santa Jeremy and Audra.

I'm so excited.

Wow.

It's been a while.

It has been a while.

Jeremy, Jeremy, I believe you know these gentlemen the best.

So why don't you give the intro for these not slow

people?

A couple of guys I met long, long time ago.

Super awesome guys have a lot of fun.

Was it a galaxy far, far away or?

It could have been a galaxy far, far away.

But we got Sloan Mellow here, Ethan and John.

Welcome to the podcast, guys.

What's up, everyone?

Actually, welcome back to the podcast.

This is this is not a first-timers show.

This is people who've been here before.

Kick the ass and take the games.

So we did not, well, most of we, Audra did, we, the rest of us,

did not get to attend Thompson.

And we heard it was quite the shindig, quite the weather.

Why is it always good weather when we can't get there?

What's up with that?

How did your Thompson event go, Sloan Mellow dudes?

And then we'll talk to Audra about Slippery.

It was good for the most part.

Could have been a little better, but we'll take it.

So you guys just fill in the Integra.

Theme remains the same.

So you're doing, I just playing a Toy Story car, correct?

Toy Story RC car.

Toy Story RC car, very well.

And the podcast that we'll be airing before this,

we had Ryan Susko on, who did very well,

slightly better than you guys.

But how did your weekend go as a total?

I know we've got one issue that comes up later in the Sunday.

But how did the weekend go?

You want to go first?

It was Friday test day, then move into Saturday.

Yeah, we did test on Friday for the first time in a while.

Let's see what happens when you do that.

What happens on Sunday when you test on Friday?

Yeah, go ahead, John.

You first.

Yeah, Friday we did a test day.

Been some improvements on the suspension.

Didn't have a ton of run time, right?

Just a few sessions, probably worth a couple hours.

Yeah, maybe an hour or two total.

Laptrack time on Friday.

Yeah, we did that.

It was the Roll Center correction kit from Poned.

It's still just the two of you in the car, right?

Yep.

Glutton's.

Don't share with nobody.

How long are your stints?

We did shorter stints on Saturday.

We were undecided on doing four stints or three stints.

But we made this decision to not kill one person

and do three stints.

So we did four stints for three stops.

Was it two hours and 15 minutes each?

Oh, that's pretty good.

Stints on Saturday.

Yeah.

Yeah, years prior we were doing one-stop days

in three and a half hour stints.

And we talked about doing something like that on Saturday.

And we just, I think the way I worded it was let's just

have more fun.

I think we're going to be up front anyway.

And it worked out that way on Saturday.

So we did a couple extra stops.

But we still did pretty good on Saturday.

I think.

At the max, you can get on like one Philip.

Sorry about all these questions.

I'm not really sure on the new engine setup.

How long we can go on the tank?

But it's over three hours.

For the winner, we did not sure.

We did a K24 swap over the winner.

Like you needed to be faster.

Yeah, and you got to catch up with those BMWs.

We did.

We did need that.

Did you?

You guys are always fast.

No, we needed that.

We needed it.

We definitely needed that.

Why?

Because you want to win, Jeremy?

No, I'm not buying a fuel cell.

So I'm not going to win overall.

Next thing you're going to say is the WACA needed a K-swap, too.

They did not need a K-swap.

Yeah, just as much as another hole in the block.

I tried to talk him out of that, but I couldn't do it.

I did as well.

So he equally listened to neither of us.

I thought we were gluttin' for punishment,

and then I met Ricky Ruz.

I know.

God.

I'm like, that is not the problem that's

holding you back, guys.

But anyway.

So Saturday, you came out of the event.

It was a wonderful weather day.

You came out.

I know you were in the top 10.

Where'd you end up?

First.

And somehow, by the grace of God,

we actually, they gave us the green flag in first on Saturday.

No way.

Yeah, yes way.

Cut it out.

You got it, Jeremy.

John was one from the drop of the green.

Yeah, I was in the car.

And going around, I'm looking at the clock.

It's like, oh, they're going to drop it soon.

I get to the start finish line.

They're just like, with the flags, just like,

I'm either first or I'm last.

It's like, not sure.

That's amazing.

Who was drinking and waving the flag?

Right, who was there as judges?

So we had Manny in the Sesame Street.

Outlaws, crew.

So Manny and Chris Haas and Janice was there as well.

That's a good judging crew.

We like those guys and girls.

Yeah, guys as well.

You guys must have made somebody real happy for them

to drop the flag for you.

What kind of bribe?

There had to be something.

What was the bribe?

But she did like it in their first born.

We did bring Manny in the Sesame Street Outlaws team.

A metal street sign that said Sesame Street on it.

So they're like that.

OK, that explains why.

But it actually did drop the green.

It actually didn't make sense as to why

that we got the green flag.

Because long story short, I had ordered the sign

knowing that they were going to be there judging.

And the delivery did not show up on Friday.

It showed up Friday.

So I told Chris and Manny about I have something for you.

But I'm going to have to give it to you Saturday morning.

Wow, maybe they didn't think anymore.

So was there another car near you that deserved the green flag?

Because usually the front runners do not get the green flag.

Yeah, I don't remember to be honest with you.

You know what though?

It could have been they all felt bad for what

happened at NJMP.

So they were like, you know what?

These guys are going to bust like mad crazy.

So let's just give them the green flag anyway.

Well, for the home players, what happened?

We appreciate it.

Home game players need to know what happened at NJMP.

We were there, we know, but.

Oh, it was terrible.

Such bad luck.

Really?

It was just a new issue.

We put the new motor in the car over the winter.

Cars going way faster than it used to before.

And we're just having issues with heat in the front end.

In New Jersey, we were only getting,

like we made it to the first lightning delay, which

was a little over an hour and a half.

And the left front axle was letting

go, boiling the grease out of the axle, the CV joint.

And we proceeded to put a replacement outer CV on there

that we had.

And the lightning delay ended.

I got in the car.

And I think it made it another hour and 40 minutes,

two hours, and same thing.

Another one let go for the same reason.

So that was when we discovered we have a bigger issue.

Just too much heat in the left front.

In New Jersey, being a clockwise track,

most of the corners are right-handers.

So the left front's got all the load and all the heat in it.

So we thought we went back to the drawing board

and redid a whole bunch of things for Thompson.

And I'm not going to say it didn't work because it worked.

Things lasted a lot longer.

But at the end of the day, it didn't make it a full race again.

So I'm assuming you had the little straw maneuver

into the boot?

The ones at New Jersey did not.

They do now, but still not enough.

We've also learned there's some more answers

to that question that we spoke with some higher up people

in the endurance racing world,

and they gave us a little more knowledge on the topic.

So we're going to try a bunch of new things and do it again.

All right, well, before we get this on,

it wins the next time you're going to get out.

Next time for race should be mid-September,

back at Thompson with another endurance race series

that they call a Bracket Grand Prix.

Yeah, the Brackets.

That seems like fun.

It's just a horrible time for us to get there,

but it seems like fun.

It is a lot of fun.

You guys should come try one,

because the guy that runs the series is really good.

He's starting to grow it.

They just did a race at Lime Rock this year.

He says they're going back to Lime Rock next year,

and he wants to do three or four races next year.

This all started as one race a year,

going back five, six years ago.

How many cars at Lime Rock?

Well, we didn't compete at Lime Rock,

but I talked to a few guys that did.

Between 25 and 30 cars.

That's not a lot, but it's not nothing.

That's good, especially for the first time.

Yeah, they do a good job with it,

and the Bracket style of racing makes it even.

So whether or not you're the fastest or slowest,

you have a chance at winning the overall.

And they put up some good money.

They give out trophies to the top 10 cars at every race.

Wow.

Yeah, it's a good thing.

And it's reasonably priced compared to most track days.

It's only a little bit more than a track day, so.

Wow.

Well, if you're going to test the front left axle,

Lime Rock's not a bad place to test it.

You have one turn that's not a right hand turn, so.

Yeah, it's a nice track.

It's a beautiful track.

But it's like the country club of race tracks I've heard.

It is.

So they're doing a Bracket.

They're doing it Friday, Saturday, I guess,

because you can't race on Sunday.

Just Friday.

Yeah, it's a one-hour practice,

and I think it's a seven-hour endurance.

When is that?

September 26th, I think, is the date.

Something like that, yeah.

Whatever the Friday is.

Yeah.

OK, that sounds like fun.

So how were the stints on Saturday?

Anything happen out of the ordinary?

Any crazy stuff in front of you or behind you?

How'd the day go?

I mean, obviously, it came out first, but like.

Pretty tame.

What was it, only like 92 cars that actually raced the weekend?

It was pretty quiet, I would say, for a Thompson race.

When typically, I think there's 105, 110 cars.

I think they cap it at 120, and sometimes they miss, so.

Yep, I think we had 117 or something like that last year.

I remember that many cars at Thompson.

How many cars were at Thompson this year?

Like 92.

Yeah, I think 92 took laps.

There might have been a few more, but 92 turned laps.

Damn.

Oh, so it wasn't as barren as it was made out to be, then?

No, it was still a good number of cars.

There was just a lot of people that weren't there

that are used in there.

A lot of regulars missed.

Yeah, a lot of regulars definitely missed.

Like three-pedal only had one car.

Yeah, I can't remember anything super crazy on Saturday.

This Saturday at Thompson is always a little bit of a challenge

just because it's a nine-hour day.

It's probably one of the longest days in a lemons race, except for a full 24 event.

So, especially out east, I think the West Coast,

it might do it a little more often, but most of the tracks don't let us run that long.

Yeah, it was pretty manageable.

I don't remember anything crazy on track, do you, John?

Not really.

I mean, your typical endurance-race stuff, you get open track for a while,

then you get caught up in the chaos of little cars and.

Any big crashes?

Everybody was pretty safe.

Yeah.

I mean, there was a couple crashes here and there.

Oh, there was the, was it Saturday that the father saw and paid each other?

That was Saturday.

Yeah, that was a highlight.

Oh, let's talk about that.

What happened there?

I don't know if it was.

I think son hit father, I think.

Dual teams or dual car team or whatever.

But yeah, the the son hit the father and then, you know,

went to the Pepsi box and he's like, oh, yeah, I hit my dad.

It wasn't that bad.

It wasn't that hard.

I mean, I guess he paused and it was like, I kind of hit him hard.

What were the cars that they were in?

I know one of the cars was a Volkswagen TTI.

I think you guys have probably seen it.

It has the Domino's Pizza thing on the roof.

Oh, yeah.

Yep.

And the other one, I'm not sure.

We talked about it in the podcast that came out before.

We're recording many podcasts all the ones

because we've had crazy months coming.

So, all right.

So, you know, you can't have too many bad stories

about a Saturday when you come out of it in first place.

Maybe this is a theory.

This is my my Thompson theory.

Maybe people only lose their mind when it's like 9000 degrees at Thompson.

Maybe that's the problem.

It's not the people.

Well, maybe it's the people, but we'll just give my excuse.

We'll say it wasn't 9000 degrees at Thompson.

No, I think they had to use blankets.

So, so Friday when we were just goofing off in the morning,

we were just tinkering with cars and stuff.

And I was helping Peter do some stuff like we closed garage doors

because we were getting chilly.

No, at Thompson.

Yeah, overnight.

It was like 50, 55 degrees or something like that.

And we didn't even heard of.

Oh, that's crazy.

I wore shorts on Friday and like regretted it in the morning.

Yeah, hi, I think Saturday was 80 something like 80 something high 70s.

Yeah.

So speaking of garage doors, beautiful weather for Thompson.

Speaking of garage doors, Audra, was it disappointing

that you got that garage towards the end

and the weather turned out to be you didn't need it?

That garage was probably the best garage we've ever had.

So there is no complaints or disappointments there.

When we got there Thursday, there was torrential rain.

So we're very appreciative of being able to set up in that garage.

I forgot about the rain, yeah.

Yeah, that's, you know, you don't need a garage all the time.

But when you need a garage, it's worth paying for the garage.

When you need the garage, it's it's valuable.

It's always worth paying for the garage.

Yeah, I was going to say 200 percent.

It's always worth it.

We didn't think we'd be getting we would be able to race at all this year.

So we were a little behind the eight ball and getting things set up.

Your car was doing pretty good, Audra,

because I was talking to Max quickly at the race.

And I don't remember if it was practice or Saturday.

I got I got around him and I was.

I told him I was impressed because I didn't get away from him

as fast as I thought I would.

So that's really that's a huge compliment.

To Max.

Yeah, the car is great.

Just slow.

Just slow, is that what you said?

Yeah, it's not slow.

It's just not fast.

It's in that nice middle section, you know?

It's OK.

It's all right.

How was that was the back of your car?

I did point you by whenever I could.

So I'm biased.

That was me.

Well, thank you for the Andy going by me.

You know, quite a bit.

Well, point-pies are always appreciated, you know?

Everybody's like, you don't need to do that.

I'm like, you don't need to.

But you still.

It's something that you know, you know, they're competing.

But you want to get out of the way, let them go and, you know.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, it also makes it easier with a field, a large field and a small track

that makes it easier for you to see where to where to make that pass

safely so you know what the car in front of you is doing.

Yeah, for sure.

It's kind of a way back.

But sometimes I don't wait back because I'm busy.

You can do it.

It's all good.

It's understood.

I mean, I'm from Jersey.

I'm used to waves with like one finger, five fingers.

It doesn't matter, whatever.

They're all communication works for me.

Jersey several times.

You totally broke up on that.

So at the end of the day on Saturday,

you were what position you were in first position?

You know, yeah.

And how was the car doing when you get off track on Saturday?

It was everything was pretty good.

We had some stupid stuff to go over, but like a little foreshadowing for Sunday.

The only thing that I can remember from Saturday was.

I remember it was middle of the day or end of the day.

My first or second stint that I did get paired up with Ryan.

In the BMW that he was driving.

And it was close to the end of my stint.

And I actually let him go by me and followed him for like my last five laps of the race.

And he was mad that I didn't want to race with him.

But I knew I was I knew I was going down Pit road soon.

So I didn't want to be in front of him because I knew he was an equally fast car.

But looking back, I probably should have drove away from him at that point.

Could have put a little space in between us, but that would have come in handy a little later.

Maybe. Maybe. I never know.

But yeah, Saturday at the end of the day.

I think all we did was.

What we do is swap pull tires, check things over, set of brake pads in the front of the car.

So was it too cold on Saturday for ice cream or was ice cream indulged?

Oh, we did get ice cream.

That's right. Got to. You're at Thompson.

It's always ice cream was kind of a touchy topic in our garage area that weekend.

Why? Why?

So I believe it was it was a Friday, John, that we started that shenanigans.

Yeah, John's grin.

Friday, we're we're just, you know, we finish up practice.

And we're always with Peter and the Ford Focus

because we're pretty good buddies with him.

So we're always side by side with him in the garage.

And he was going to do a fuel run to fuel all his cans for the next day.

And maybe a Walmart stop with him, his wife and a couple of the guys from his team.

And they're gone for a while.

And I think John texted them, like, dude, where are you?

Trackwalk and like, we had like, it's Thompson.

So, you know, you're going to get ice cream.

Oh, yeah. Well, guess who pulled back into the paddock with ice cream?

Not for you guys. Not for us.

Not for us.

That said, he'd be back in five minutes and 10 minutes later, here he comes.

So for the rest of the weekend, we did not let Peter live that down.

And we made damn sure that Saturday

when the track went cold that we went and got ice cream before dinner.

And everybody had to go as a group, not just half the group.

But yeah, we proceeded to give him a hard time all weekend about the ice cream.

Sounds fantastic.

True lemon spirit. I like it. Very cool.

All right. So Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.

How'd Sunday go?

Wait, I'm going to rewind to Saturday night for Saturday.

Saturday, Saturday. How'd Saturday go?

We check things over car on jack stands,

front brake pad, swap in the front,

put the wheels back on.

I go to put the left front wheel on three out of four lug nuts on

fourth one on the stud breaks off the hub.

Oh, no, those are the days where just words just come out of your mouth

automatically. They're all why is there so much heat in that left front?

I don't know if that was heat related, but it was strange because they're

ARP wheel studs that we

we replace them pretty regularly, like every season.

So that was strange.

But so we did a quick hub replacement

because we carry full full spindle, like a full knuckle

with bearings and everything on it.

So we had to pull that left front back apart

and put the hub and stuff on and then torque the wheels a second time.

And all the lugs remained intact the second time.

And one other one other notable thing from Saturday night

is one of the fine gentlemen from the

BMW team miss I'm forgetting the name of their team now.

But Barbarian or something cream something or others.

One makes me think of donuts.

Yeah, one of them came trotten over.

And apparently they run a differential cooler on the back of their BMW.

And it was leaking profusely all day.

And they bandated it together.

And this gentleman was looking for O-rings to try and bandated it more

to attempt to beat us on Sunday.

We pointed him in the direction of several O-rings and got them hooked up.

We did give him a hard time about it.

But at first he thought I was serious.

But I explained to him that it was just it was just a joke.

So we we helped them get that thing fixed.

And then we got to start racing in the next day in the morning.

We should say the afternoon because we're in Connecticut.

It's true. It can't start till after lunch.

Nope. Weird, but whatever.

All right. So starting you're starting in the number one position.

I'm assuming you got out in time.

So you got the top 10 lineup.

Who else was in the who was who was to your rear?

So W is right behind us.

BMW with Ryan Suska and the Bavarian cream boys or whatever their name is.

On the same lap too.

Yeah, same lap behind.

They should have raced them hard.

Yeah, behind them was

Steve Jardine in one of the Johnston's Toyota's

FRS's and then behind that, I believe, was

a Zynga racing in one of their LS swapped 300 ZX, maybe.

Correct.

And then I believe there's also the Z fours in there somewhere, too.

Yeah, the the Home Depot themed BMW Z for Steve Jardine's other FRS.

Was there red balls car in there?

I believe they were red balls and maybe the four, four, four.

The winers were the winers for an X after the top 10.

Oh, wait, that's Sunday. Sorry. We're working on it.

So it was pretty pretty stacked.

And then, yeah, we talked about it Saturday night,

what what the hell our plan was strategy wise.

I didn't think that I could be faster than

certain people in the BMW, but we decide.

John's usually a hair faster than me at Thompson.

So we decided to have him go second on Sunday

to have the faster guy in the car for the end.

It's Bavarian cream motorsport is the official.

There we go.

So, yeah, I was I was first on Sunday.

We had a lovely pace lap.

We roll off a pit road.

I make one lap expecting green flag

and come out of the final corner.

And there's track trucks and flashing lights

and people everywhere on the front straightway.

Apparently, somebody rolled out of the paddock onto the track

and was profusely dumping fluid for a full lap

and put oil down all three turn one,

turn two, turn three, turn four under the tunnel out under the oval.

All the way it wasn't the BMW all the way to the oval.

Oh, my God, all the way, all the way.

Like they were putting speedy dry to where we come off the oval

and go around the mountain out back.

We did pace laps for like the first half hour.

They speedy dried basically the whole race line.

It was it was right in the race line where you, you know,

you would turn into one and break.

So they speedy dried it.

They brought the tow trucks out, dragging tires to run the speedy dry in.

I tried to get everybody behind me to follow me through the speedy dry

so we could kind of run it in and mash it up before we went green.

But when we did finally get the green flag turn one was

there was a high pucker factor going in there as the first guy

to go through the slippery stuff. So yeah, I stayed stayed to the outside of it.

But it never it never never got slick.

So that was good. They did a good job cleaning it up.

So they got to give props to the track crew.

They really took their time and got it cleaned.

They even at one point had sent one of the track crew members out

to the end of Pit Road and he was laying down on the front straightway

looking under every car to find who was dropping the fluid.

They must have figured it out or they ran out of fluid, whichever came first.

Yeah, if they if they drained fluid all the way to the to the oval

and outside the oval, they're coming in pretty soon.

Yeah, I wasn't going to last long from the looks.

No, people don't look at gauges.

That doesn't mean the car keeps running.

What are gauges?

Gages are just afterthought.

Hey, look, I think the car stopped.

Oh, I know why it's really, really hot.

OK. So you took green.

You finally went racing.

Yeah, we know what happened.

I remember telling John on Saturday that I didn't I didn't know

if I could be faster than that car.

We took green and me and Ryan Suska in the BMW

and we raced as hard as I've ever raced for an hour straight.

And it was the most fun I've ever had behind the wheel of a car.

For the most part, kept him behind him behind me.

He got by me once or twice quickly,

but we were able to get back around them.

And it was just it was insane.

He was painting my bumper for a while.

I get a few car links on him once we got out of traffic.

We get back into traffic.

He'd get door to door with me.

We crisscrossed, you know, I would break early

and turn under him coming out of the corner.

And he would do the same thing to me in the next corner.

So it was a lot of fun.

Definitely get a lot of things that you don't normally do

trying to run away from the second place car,

but that's what we had to do.

We didn't touch anybody.

We didn't touch each other.

And it was good because, you know, it was it's good

when you can do that with somebody that, you know,

I wouldn't say like we're like great friends with Ryan,

but like, you know, we've been around him enough.

Sure. We hang out with him.

He's driven friends cars.

He's a trustworthy opponent.

Like I know what he can do in a car

and I'm not afraid to, you know, get close to him

cause I know he's not going to do something dumb.

And if it's an accident, it's an accident,

but it was cool to race that hard

with somebody you know and trust.

Yeah, that's amazing stuff.

That's like the best days.

That is always fun.

There was one point he got around me,

I think going into one

and I got him back on the outside of two,

but I was left sides off sideways through the grass

to get back around him.

But don't tell anybody didn't see that.

What grass? There's no grass.

Hey, Vic.

That was just the track color being green.

Vic, when we were talking to Ryan,

didn't he say that he was just sandbag

in all the beginning of Sunday

just trying to get them to use up their car?

Wasn't that what he was saying?

Yeah, pretty much.

That's exactly what I heard.

He's like push hard enough.

I just didn't push him.

I just wanted to push him

so they'd use up their car.

So our guys can get him later.

I think that was what he was saying

something about that he had.

He had you in the bag.

He just wanted to make sure he used everything

we were thinking the same thing.

If we pushed him hard enough,

that rear diff would start leaking again.

I don't think it'll leak towards the end of the game.

I think there's the end of the day.

There was nothing left to leak.

I think it was leaking pretty bad,

but they made it.

Yeah, five hours is a little lot easier

than the normal eight hours

we usually do on Sundays.

So, yeah.

For sure, for sure.

So you did your two and a half plus

or plus or minus?

No, we were,

I think it was just past the one hour mark.

I was, at that point,

I think I had gotten away from him

and there was maybe four or five cars in between us.

It's a familiar feeling.

So I know when it's coming

because we've done it so many times

and a couple of right hand corners,

I started feeling the vibration in the wheel

and under hard throttle.

The car starts to try and rip the wheel out of your hand.

So I knew it was coming.

I came on the radio and told John,

like, hey, the left front axle's starting to let go again.

I'm gonna go a couple more laps to give him time

to get back to the garage if he wasn't there

and get some shit ready.

And I made it three or four more laps.

I was kind of, I had backed off

because it gets kind of hairy.

You don't even know what I was gonna do.

I didn't want to take somebody out

if something happened.

So I had backed it off.

I let Ryan go by.

I was kind of just like half pace for a few laps

and then just one lap at the end of the front straightway.

It broke and limped it around back to the garage

and they were there waiting

and they did a pretty awesome job

because I looked at it before we did this podcast today.

It was 25 minutes total lap time of...

That's full of how it can end, right?

I'm the jack stands and John did most of the work.

My father was there to give him a hand,

but I know that thing was blazing hot

because we did find out we have very high brake temperatures

and I know it was beating the hell out of it for an hour.

So yeah, it was 25 minutes and they had it changed.

That's almost like respectable racing turnaround

because that's a, that's no joke

because that's an out lap and an in lap, right?

And John, I think John will tell you

but because I stayed in the car

but I'm pretty sure they melted through

and just set a welding gloves trying to take stuff apart.

Yeah, we didn't, I'm not through them.

It just the heat from the welding gloves,

like the heat from the brakes,

like the welding gloves, like didn't even,

it didn't even touch it.

Like Ethan's dad was, you know,

had the gloves on trying to hold the knuckle

and all that stuff.

So I could get the axle in and out

and if you just, you needed rags

as an additional barrier

and everything was just so hot.

That was the biggest struggle

of changing out that axle

and everything was just basically on fire.

That's crazy.

I will add that the welding gloves

were donated by the opponent that we were racing to.

So that was cool of them.

That's awesome.

I didn't even know where they came from, honestly.

I found that out at the end of the day on Sunday

that they were, that was their,

they brought the welding gloves over

as soon as they seen us struggling

with the hot stuff in the left front.

So, so Jeremy, before we get through this,

you, if I remember right,

you had some trouble with axles,

well, the Volkswagen.

Any tips of words of wisdom you could provide?

No, no, we had them rebuilt by the best place

in the country, uses all German parts

and nope, they still have,

we still have issues.

Tom's having the same issues.

Yeah, so basically after talking with some people

that somebody friend of Tom Lomino

has actually hooked me up with somebody in mass

that pretty high-end race shop guy

has been around the IMSA world

and he's kind of a master of case swaps and things.

A lot of our problem is geometry related

and also a lot of the problem is

we're taking a car from 1992,

putting a motor that's way bigger and way faster in it

and just we're introducing the car to loads

and speeds and brake temperatures

that it was never meant to be introduced to.

So we're gonna fix some geometry issues

to get axle angles a little better.

We're gonna change the axle grease we're using.

We're gonna add some more cooling

because we redid all the cooling to the brakes.

I'm gonna add a little cooling to the CV joint itself.

We're removing the small clamp

on the inner part of the CV and leaving no clamp

just so that the boot itself can breathe

and then trying to think what's the one other thing

we're doing, drawing a blank.

Which doctor?

I don't know, that sounds like all that I thought.

That might have been all of it.

Yeah, and then we're gonna, oh, sorry.

So the other thing that we were instructed to do

is that every race, the axles need to come out of the car,

boots need to come off, all the grease cleaned up

and ball and basket thoroughly inspected

for any heat signature spots,

re-greased and put back together every 20 hours, roughly,

just because of what we're doing

and how much abuse we're putting it through.

The, he had told me if we were sprint racers,

we'd never experience this problem,

but because we're endurance racing,

we're just built, you build so much heat

and it never has a chance to cool.

And, you know, this is the byproduct.

That's one thing about endurance racing.

It's always gonna find the weakest link no matter what.

So, Miss Vicki, when you're bitching

about what we need to do in the garage,

just think about what they gotta do now, huh?

Yeah, yeah.

It's fun to go fast, but there's a large toll to pay.

Yeah.

Yes and no.

If you get a car that's quick enough

that is still all factory,

there's not a huge toll to pay.

No, there's a bill to pay in the beginning.

That's where the bill is.

I don't know.

I got weight less in that BMW

than probably all the other vehicles

that we're all talking about.

And Jeremy, you actually have to show up to the race

to actually do something with the car, though.

Ow!

I had something way more important to do.

No, I know.

We're gonna talk about that.

Don't worry about it.

That doesn't mean we can't give you a hard time.

Oh, I know.

I know, trust me.

It's not like when Jeremy goes.

You guys that I had a severe case of FOMO Friday morning?

No, I gotta say I was impressed.

Cause if, I know like if I miss a race,

I would be like Jonesen to find out what's going on

and want to be there.

So we did say it was eerily quiet without you around.

And people were closed and everything.

I made Peter put on all the loud music

on his speaker in memory of you.

Oh, good.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

So you got to finish your stint

and then you did another change to John later.

I see on the, I finally opened up race money.

So you came out seventh after your issue.

That's not bad.

Yeah.

That's actually impressive.

Very, very impressive.

Yeah, you went from second to seventh, I think.

Yeah.

Well, you really, you could, you really were in first

and then you had to limp.

So you came in second.

Considering the competition that was there

and probably the top 20 cars, let's say 15 to 20,

and you came out, you had to replace the axle

and came out in seventh.

That's impressive.

That's amazing.

Pretty, pretty awesome.

A lot of people had come up to us at the end of the day

and said, you know, something similar.

So that's why we were,

we're still pretty happy about the weekend.

Yep.

So you finished your stint up

and it looks like you got to sixth

and then immediately had to come in to get your pit stop.

Does that seem right?

I think I got, I got like a penalty and a pit stop

at the same time, actually.

Penalty, you guys don't get penalties.

Cut it out.

What did you do?

I didn't do anything.

But they said I had contact on track,

but there was no contact.

But you know, it was one of those deals.

I came in anyway.

I was coming in to change with John anyway.

So I rolled through the penalty box.

I talked to Manny, he asked me what I did.

I said, I don't know, you tell me.

And he said, they're saying contact.

And I said, okay.

And he was like, you got anything to say?

I was like, I know how it is.

I'm not here to argue.

If they said contact, then contact, you know?

He did walk around the car.

I said, I don't see anything.

He asked me if I thought I made contact.

I said, I'm 100% sure I didn't,

but I'm not here to argue with you.

So whatever you got to do.

And he sent me on my way.

There was an instance behind the last corner or two

where we were all like two by two really, really tight.

And a couple of cars were checking up.

And we never touched,

but the corner worker probably saw it as being too close.

You know, thought we touched, but.

That's been a reoccurring thing.

I've noticed the last few years at Thompson and NJMP,

where real, real close racing,

we're getting called for contact,

even though there's no contact.

And it's those specific tracks too.

I've noticed that the last few years.

It would have really sucked if we were still out front,

but given the circumstances, it was,

yeah, at that point I didn't really care.

It was whatever.

We're just salvaging the day at that point.

But yeah, hopefully someday that doesn't happen

when we're in the lead, but.

You paid the karma down, right?

Hopefully this is the one you don't get.

Yeah.

Yeah. And by the way, Jeremy,

it happened to me twice at New Hampshire.

So don't treat your home track like it's immune from this.

I got called in for contact and.

I didn't say New Hampshire wasn't that.

I'm saying New Jersey and Thompson

the last couple of years has been pretty big.

We've gotten more crappy flags at New Hampshire.

Yep.

I would agree, yeah.

I did get a flag leading the race at New Hampshire

for passing under yellow.

Well, I mean, you're Mellow Yellow.

What are you going to do?

I mean, that's probably what I should have used

when they asked, but it happened there.

That's what I would do.

If I passed under yellow, it was definitely Mellow, though.

I'm going to write that one down.

There you go.

Use it for next time.

Yeah.

I can't promise anything.

I'm going to tell them Bill said.

So go talk to Bill.

He's over there.

Bill with Garage Heroes set.

Yeah.

Exactly.

It'll work.

It'll get you so much of nothing.

So you did a pit stop and then, John, you got in the car?

Yeah.

Yeah, two and a half hours to close up a day.

Bunch of yellows.

My God.

How many did you get?

Four.

Four yellows?

Wow, sounds like Sunday was a lot of crap breaking.

Not as bad as Saturday morning, I feel.

Saturday, the first couple of stints,

I think we had a lot of yellows.

But Sunday afternoon, I don't really recall.

I don't know.

They seemed like two hours.

So they were kind of short.

But still, thinking about that.

But yeah.

Anything to go on?

Another kind of mellow.

I kind of remember details.

Just spent a few weeks.

But yeah.

Our buddy Pete, unfortunately, did get an accident.

He caused one of those yellows.

And the focus.

You know what sticks out to me after reviewing this?

I believe a pass for position on the next to final lap

is pretty amazing, sir.

I just looked at that earlier before we started the call.

I didn't even notice that until today.

Was that me?

Yeah.

So I was actually chasing down another car, too.

The pass for position was that over Steve's second car?

I believe it might have been the 299.

Was it the 299 that he passed?

The 299.

It would have been 299, the FRS.

Yeah.

So he actually ran out of brake pads in the rear.

On his car.

And he spun out going into turn one.

He walked him up and spun out into turn one.

Sounds like fun.

I was actually, I had another car.

But I was pretty certain it was on the same lap.

The Bazinga car.

Bazinga 73.

Yeah.

I was pretty certain they were on the same lap.

Yep.

Couldn't quite get them towards the end of the day.

Cool attempts for getting a little higher than I'd like to see him.

So it was like the last 15 minutes,

I just kind of backed it down at that point.

Probably wise.

You do already.

Nice.

There, you know, they were with the insight, but it was that car.

I believe it was, um,

I don't think they were in the same fight as I was, but

Winers were on the same lap, too.

Oh, they were.

Okay.

Which car?

Yes.

763 of the Winers.

Okay.

Yeah.

So they were all right there.

So yeah, I could have,

I didn't realize they were that close to you.

So a third place was potentially actually on the table.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

Yep.

It was, but, uh, you know,

what is it?

Uh, second place is first loser kind of thing.

We can do the towel day and night thing.

So, you know.

Yeah.

So no trophies for,

no trophies.

For a second place, right?

So good.

Looks like a great weekend.

I mean, if you guys can conquer this, uh,

Axel issue,

you guys definitely looked a little faster.

What was the speed difference?

Was it significant?

Like the lap times?

Um, I did check that fast lap last year was in the mid to

high one 28th fast lap.

This year was John with a one 25.

Eight or nine nine.

Three seconds.

At Thompson.

Because Thompson's not a long lap either.

Yeah.

At Pittsburgh earlier this year.

It was 10 seconds a lap faster from the old setup.

That's,

that's ridiculous.

Thompson's just hard to, to use the speed.

So.

Right.

10 seconds a lap at pit race.

My God.

Right.

You got a lot more power.

You don't have a.

Vote loads of torque to pull that thing out of a corner.

Compared to other motors that, you know.

Yeah, but 10 seconds.

We get the RPM though.

Yeah.

It's impressive.

The cars.

It's pretty deadly.

And.

I would go as far as saying that that car.

Coming out of any corner in second year.

I don't think there's a car in the lemons field that

could.

Accelerate it.

No.

Nope.

Like.

I posted a video a while back of us coming out of the last

corner of Pittsburgh.

Side by side with, I think it was Anton.

In the 444 car.

And.

Drove by him going down the front straightaway at Pittsburgh.

So.

That was the moment when I knew that.

It was worth it.

Yeah.

Sounds like.

I don't know if we ever break out Jonah's car again.

That there wasn't a car that could touch us coming out of the

corner.

Yeah.

Those two would be exciting to get together again.

Yep.

I think you,

Jonah's car and maybe Betty,

that would be fun to see.

Mm hmm.

Be a good.

We made sure to give.

You know,

retired driver.

Right.

You know,

retired driver.

You know,

we made sure to give.

You know, retired driver.

Right.

Retired team owner Tom Lomino.

A lot of crap this weekend because he showed up without his

car.

And his, his excuse that was, you know, you know,

we have a chance to win this weekend because he wasn't there.

So.

Yeah.

We made sure we made sure we gave him plenty of crap.

Tom, I love you, but you mean your hot shoes are not

there.

Wow.

Getting feisty here. All right.

All right.

I told Tom if we were close on Sunday,

we were going to call in Jonah to finish the race for us.

Wow.

So, so before we go into our second part of our thing,

Jeremy, you weren't at the race because.

I was not at the race.

We had other things to do,

something that we had planned a year prior.

Last year of,

of baseball season for youth sports.

And we took the kids to Cooper's town to play some,

some baseball.

Did they love it?

Amazing.

Yep.

Absolutely amazing time.

Makes me want to go back as a coach.

I'm going to work on in the future,

trying to figure out how to get some teams together and

bring some teams.

It was such a great time.

So tell me about Coopersville.

So Cooper's town is right next to Cooper's town.

Sorry.

Cooper's town is where the baseball hall of famous.

It's kind of like,

I'm not going to say ground zero for baseball,

but it's, it's a pretty big deal for baseball.

You know the movie,

a league of their own.

Yeah.

That was written after the women that played baseball.

That field that they play in is actually right.

It's in downtown Cooper's town.

Oh.

Yeah.

So it's a huge deal.

Cooper's town.

There's two different parks there.

We played at dreams park had 22 baseball fields that were

played on plus the grand stadium where the final

game of the week is played.

22 fields.

There were 24 batting cages.

How many teams?

There was a hundred and four teams.

Oh,

so in the barracks,

we estimated that there were about 1,800 players and

coaches that were staying in the barracks.

So it's like a college.

It's like a college.

Really?

Yeah.

It's absolutely amazing.

I have a ton of pictures.

I'll show you guys later,

but like sitting outside at night,

watching them shut down like for baseball fans,

watching them shut down all the lights individually

throughout the fields and watching them all go dark

was pretty magnificent.

First game we played,

we beat the team that we played and it was tied

four to four in the fifth inning and Rory hit his

first homerun ever and hit a two run homerun to put us

up six to four.

And then we ended up winning.

We scored two more runs after that.

Second game we played.

We played a team from Texas called the Texas Smoke.

They pretty much annihilated us.

They went on to play the top eight teams.

We were one of only eight teams there that were not

travel like very expensive travel baseball teams.

Like there was only eight like all-star small town

all-star teams there.

Everything else was like pay put together teams

from across the country.

Rory pitched that game and he was on the mound.

He held them to four runs.

We held them to four runs.

Rory pitched amazing held them to four runs.

The coach was losing his mind because I was coaching

third base the whole weekend the whole time.

Were you a nuisance?

No.

I kept my mouth shut believe it or not.

I do not by the way.

You're saying you coach baseball different

than you coach driving?

Yes.

100% different.

That team was incredibly rude.

The coach was throwing stuff in the dugout.

He told the pitcher that if one more kid

got a hit off of him he was coming off the mound

and not going to pitch again in Cooperstown.

The parents were saying a bunch of really bad things

in the stands behind me.

It was horrible.

If I was any other place I probably would have

dragged one of the parents over the wall

and beat him right there in the baseball field.

But if I did that at Cooperstown I wouldn't

have been able to be there for the rest of the time.

They're very strict and as a coach you would

have got kicked out.

They're very strict on face punching.

It wasn't worth it.

But yes, so Rory held them to four runs through

four innings and then we had another pitcher go in

and we ended up losing the game 21 to three.

So that was good.

Third game we played.

Same thing.

We finished that game at midnight that night.

We played all three games in one day

because we had a rain delay.

Finished that game at midnight.

We ended up winning that game I think seven to five,

which was pretty impressive.

And then the kids were pretty tired Saturday.

So two teams that we played we should have won

fairly easily, but the kids were so tired on

Saturday and the games were so close that

they lost both of those games, which really

stunk because it would have put us in a better

playoff bracket.

But we finished the regular seeding part of

the tournament, two wins and three losses,

which put us in 60th place overall out of 104.

There were a lot of teams that didn't win a

single game that whole weekend, which was

impressive considering we, our towns have never

done that.

They've only ever won one game in Cooperstown

and we're just an all-star team from

small towns.

We didn't have, you know, massive towns to

pick and choose from.

So we went in, we were 60th for the, for the

playoff brackets.

We were good enough to get a buy for the first

round.

Second round we played.

We beat that team 21 to six, I think.

No, 22 to six.

Rory hit another to run home run in that

game.

So that put us into the third round of the

playoffs and we ended up getting knocked out

by the next team that we played, which

was ranked number 20th out of 104 teams.

So it was, it was a pretty impressive,

pretty unbelievable time out there.

That's pretty awesome.

Sounds like it.

It was pretty sweet.

Yeah.

Used to do tournaments like that back in the

day when I was a kid.

It played like traveling soccer like that.

And you never forget like those huge

tournaments like that where you get to

play and meet people from all over the

world.

That's pretty sweet.

Yeah.

There were a couple of teams there from

Japan.

The team that ended up winning the whole

thing was from Seattle.

They annihilated everybody, but they've

only lost four games in the last two

years and they've played over 150 games.

They're a travel ball team and they've

only lost four games in the last two

years.

Wow.

So yeah.

Yeah.

That team is pretty crazy.

That's Ken Griffey Jr. playing on that

team.

What the hell?

There's already talks that four of the

kids that are on that team are going to

make the majors.

So it's pretty impressive the talent

that's there.

It was just so cool.

Such an awesome time.

We went to the baseball hall of fame.

The kids, we did a competition.

They did a whole bunch of competitions

the first day at the end of the day

when the rain finally stopped.

They did opening ceremonies and then

that started at 11 o'clock and there

was like a home run derby, a throwing

competition.

There was a running the basis competition

and then we did what they call around

the horn where you had to throw the

baseball in different motions through

every player and you got clocked on it

earlier that day.

We practiced it in between the rain

and we did it in 22 seconds and I

think 22.45 seconds the week before

the winning team did it in 23.8 seconds.

So our kids did very well at that and

then we get out there to actually do it

at 11 o'clock on Thursday night and we

were ahead of the time because I

timed it all.

We were ahead of the time and then

one of our kids made an error so we

ended up with like 35 seconds or

something.

So we got knocked out but we were

ahead of our 22.4 second time or

whatever it was.

Still amazing.

It's pretty incredible.

Yeah.

All right.

So John, well done for Jeremy and

the boys.

Nicely done.

Are we keeping the theme from your

cars intact for a while?

Mm-hmm.

Excellent.

Very nice.

Yep.

So John and Ethan, we saw a post

partially inspired,

why would you get together, where

you had gotten some help from some

I'm not going to steal the thunder

because I'm not actually sure the

proper terminology.

So you had gotten some assistance

with your team and it looked like

it was something that would be

adventurous so we decided to talk

about that just a little bit if

you guys were willing to share.

Yeah, I guess so.

That was me.

I just been...

I didn't really get any help yet

but we're working on it.

It's kind of a long story but I

can try and shorten it a little.

I put extra tape in this so we

got time.

Yeah, I got teamed up with a

club called Action Sports Club

and they kind of...

what they do is teach action

sports people, you know, like

ourselves people, whether it's

racing cars, dirt bikes,

snowmobiles, jumping out of

planes, anything action sports

related.

They teach you how to

grow your audience

through social media

because in today's day and age

social media is king

whether you like it or not.

It kind of makes the world go

around.

I think it's not going anywhere

anytime soon.

Is that the one that they throw

all the ads on Facebook and

Instagram and all over the place

with like the book on the

front?

That's the one.

I know exactly what you're

talking about.

I thought about that.

Yeah, I was going to ask.

I'm sure a lot of you have seen

it because we probably all have

very similar algorithm on

Facebook.

I'm sure we all look at

plenty of car things and

racing related things.

I think you got mail on

at me last year or the year

before because all I had on my

Facebook and Instagram was

pictures of either cars or

girls.

I'm like, I can't help that.

That's just what I get.

That's mine too.

Mine three.

Exactly.

Because as soon as you

stop on a photo of

an awesome car and there is

a woman in the in the photo

somewhere, all of a sudden now

your Facebook, the algorithm

throws women on your

feed all the time.

I know.

I'm a parent.

Apparently, I'm a

Belarusian delicacy.

That's the latest.

So there you go.

So talk to us more about this.

These.

The process that you went

through for this.

Yeah, so.

They kind of advertise the

book in their program.

Long story short.

Last winter.

I started dabbling in racing

snowmobiles because

John and myself right.

We do a lot of snowmobile

riding.

Once in a great while, we

actually ride together, but

very rarely lately.

We have been able to meet up.

We kind of.

Ride with separate groups of

people, but.

Yeah, so my family used to

race sleds way back in the

day, my grandfather.

So I've always wanted to do it.

This year, I finally signed

myself up to do some snow

cross racing and then did

cross country snowmobile

racing, which is kind of

similar to like a giant

road course, like we race

just on a snowmobile.

So I did that and

through that, I met a guy

and raced with a guy that

does quite well for himself.

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GHiT 0724: Ethan and Jon - Review of The Thompson Race and Much More

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