Garage Heroes In Training Sep 15, 2025

GHiT 0727: Nick Barbato Returns to Talk GLTC at Lime Rock 2025 with GridLife

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Welcome to the Garage Heroes and Training Podcast.

I'm going to be one of those princesses above.

Can't have my voice get any higher.

Anyway.

What was that?

I don't know.

I got very excited.

My name is Bill.

Who else is hosting?

It's Vicky.

I know.

You know what, Miss Vicky?

He's been on so long.

He might as well just say he's a host as well.

Welcome back to the podcast, Nick Barbado.

Thank you, Bill and Vicky.

Stoked to be here as usual.

Well, there's either one of two reasons that we have you on.

A, you just finished another race, maybe a grid life event.

Or B, you fell into the threshold

of you responded on a text or an email and said, yes.

So we take either one of those.

Why are we here this time?

Sorry, sir.

Maybe a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.

Yeah, there's that.

Yeah.

A little bit, a little bit.

So, sir, we were unable to attend a recent event

at one of our favorite tracks, Lime Rock Park.

But you know, got to take care of the little girl

going to college.

And we weren't quite there yet.

And it was day before.

So anyway, you, however, got to go there.

I did.

That's one of the best events in the nation.

One of the best tracks in the nation.

I think you're slightly biased there, but we do agree.

Maybe a little bit.

So how was grid life?

I think this is third round or fourth round?

Third round?

Fourth round.

Might be fourth.

Third round for me.

It might be like the fifth round of the season.

Maybe even sixth?

I don't know.

Oh, no, I meant at Lime Rock.

Oh, Lime Rock.

Yeah.

It's a great park.

It's like one of those, I'm in the middle of nowhere,

I'm in the middle of nowhere, I'm in the middle of nowhere.

Where did this racetrack come from?

Because it doesn't look like it belongs there.

And it's just like appeared out of this.

It's like the universe just carved out a little slice

of heaven in the middle of Northwestern Connecticut.

You know, I mean, you get to race

with the backdrop of beautiful mountains, pines.

There's actually a little river

that runs next to the track.

And you know that?

I think it's called the Salmon River.

I did know that.

And I do not do that.

It is.

And the track has actually opened most of the year,

even just literally as a park.

I know people that have season passes there,

they go there in the wintertime and just relax.

It is a fantastic place to be.

We have been there in the winter time

when they were not allowed to turn on their sprinklers

for the wet skid pad.

So it was a dry skid pad.

Ooh.

That was a very easy way to get rid of a set of tires.

I'll just say that.

I can imagine, I can imagine.

I didn't say it wasn't fun.

I just said it was a good time.

So Gridlife GLTC, sir, you came out,

I believe last race was mid-o, correct?

Yes, sir.

Fresh off the wind, first one of the series.

First win of the series.

First win at mid-o is a very nice track.

We like that as well.

And then going into Lime Rock, we had thoughts.

We had plans.

We had home track advantage.

We had expectations.

We did.

You know, you know what happens when you have expectations.

That's a bad thing.

It's right if there were an assumption,

so we're assuming.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

The odd couple joke again, but yeah.

I got it.

So how did PrepGo coming into the event?

Prep went great.

We did everything we could.

The usual, you know, nut and bolts,

brush oil change, new transmission fluid.

You know, we confirmed that the new lightweight clutch

and flywheel assembly was working good.

You know, check the brakes.

Just, you know, just all the usual stuff

went through the car, made it look pretty.

No mechanical disasters to fix or anything

coming out in a bit of a while.

Mechanical disasters.

No, it was it was pretty, pretty shape forward,

you know, bottom new set of tires, you know,

maybe the tires, which shall not be named.

But, you know, well, we were we were ready.

And so so we know you are.

I think as far as GLTC goes,

you're the local boy for Lime Rock, right?

I'm definitely the local boy.

Unless there's someone else

who's less than an hour and 10 minutes in the track.

I'm the wow, that's almost a home track for you.

I would call it the home track.

I proudly proclaim it as such.

Yes. So so home track driving stud that you are.

Do we go with a NASCAR type set up here?

Do we do we go with a little bit of wedge?

A little bit of I only turn right.

That left hand turn is just a mistake

they put on here for unknown reason.

That is a great question.

And you will get different answers

from from different individuals.

Some of them leave an answer to this,

believe it, but not many.

Yeah, I will give you a truthful answer.

The answer is I don't know because I've never tested it.

And that might sound crazy, right?

Because I have over a thousand data log labs there.

I told that story a couple of times on the live broadcast.

By the way, I'm on the live broadcast. That's right.

I was there.

I was there in spirit and on their spirit.

I also told the story at the drivers meeting.

That was cool.

The new to GLTC meeting.

I'll tell you the story about that as well.

That was cool.

But yeah, so I've never tested wedge.

I never tested like a hyper camber,

you know, like a bias camber to one side,

you know, less camber on the right.

Some guys swear by it.

I've talked to different folks that have tested it.

You know, the the guy that I trust the most says

it was worth maybe a couple of tenths.

But he said you're definitely slower in the left hander.

And he said that actually the the tire wear

can get a little wonky.

And he said he wasn't really convinced it was a huge difference.

Now, does that mean it's not worth anything?

Does it mean that maybe it wasn't it was the right call?

It's definitely possible.

It might have been the right call.

And at least one of the cars that did great.

Paul Darling ran, you know, sort of extreme camber on the left

and less camber on the right.

I mean, how much was it worth? I don't know.

But yeah, I personally don't think it's critical for performance.

You know, I did.

I'll be more honest now about preseason testing.

I did a fifty seven point two there in a full G.L.T.C.

trim, you know, with the early part of the year

and good track conditions on the Maxis tire.

So yeah.

And that's without running a special setup for Lime Rock.

Rumor has it you're a doppelganger.

Mr. Koteel does do this as well.

Yes. Yes.

I think there's definitely merit to it.

I mean, look, it's just physics.

Like the car should be faster in all the right hand corners.

If you I think it's actually less about adding

camber to the driver's side and more about taking away camber from the right side.

Because ideally, you should already have the tire

optimized for any corner you're making.

So I don't know, you know, maybe you could try a little bit more camber,

sacrifice, braking and gain more more tire durability.

But I think it's more about standing up, as they say, you know,

running less negative camber on the right side tires to bias more grip

once you're loaded up in the left hand or in the right hand corners.

I think that's probably where the majority of the time is.

So it's certainly not slow, you know, that's for sure.

I think there was a mix of guys in the top six that ran some staggered, some not.

Miss Vicki, you have a puzzled look that either means your computer

is not doing what you want or you have nobody to talk to.

No, I'm fine. OK, I'm fine.

I'm just listening to it all. OK.

Fascinating car stuff.

Yes, she got the good enough garage this weekend, so she's quite.

Oh, I am so so tickled.

So let's see.

So I guess before.

Before practice or after practice, you guys have your your pre race meetings?

Yeah, we actually before practice on the first day.

So we do a good life touring cup

and time a track driver's meeting in the morning.

I think it was 8 a.m. on Friday.

And then after that, there's a new to GLTC meetings.

So basically before anyone, you know, sets a tire on the track.

We do those meetings.

So what's the touring cup?

GLTC.

Is that says that's that's the whole race is what they call the touring cup.

No, that's the that's the wheel to wheel series.

And now there's a second one that's a little faster called GLTT.

GT GT.

Oh, I knew it had the extra T.

So they needed somebody.

They need a place for the fast ones to go.

Well, yeah.

And I think they wanted to scale up the series to to attract other cars

because the so the GLTC is like a 12 and a half to one power to weight ratio.

The GT is like, I think 10 oh so, you know, for your NASA folks,

that's like an ST2, you know, ST3 type of vibe.

You know, you know, 100 or 200 more horsepower,

you know, more tire, stickier tire, more aero.

I mean, really, really bad ass cars.

You know, just a sort of a different different level than TC

in terms of speed potential anyway.

And I never criticize Adam.

I just have a difference of opinion.

He went the wrong way.

I would have gone.

You think you should have a lighter Sunday cup.

Oh, yeah.

Well, they do have one.

They have like the Honda Fit series.

Wheel to wheel, wheel to wheel.

Yeah, why not make that wheel to wheel?

Exactly. That's yeah.

I mean, it sounds like an awfully, awfully good, terrible idea.

That would be fun.

Those guys have great battles, too.

They do. I appreciate the slow car stuff.

I mean, I didn't know I did lemons for so long.

I know. Slow car fast, baby.

That's right.

I would have to either buy my old car back

or get another one because that would be just too, too much.

I would actually that might actually get me very excited.

Get me out of my retirement, but that's OK.

I'm not sure I'm retired.

So so you said you had a story about the driver meeting.

It was cool. Yeah.

So I was just a nice, I guess, a nice tidbit.

You know, I was asked by Hans Horpatal, who's there,

I guess he's like a director of, you know,

of racing experience or something, you know, just, you know,

making sure the culture is good, making sure the new drivers are taken care of,

you know, you know, just general morale and, you know,

Patek, etiquette, et cetera, you know, helping out the new driver.

So yeah, I was asked to do the new to GLTC meeting, which, you know,

they so just so you know, they make everyone do this for at least four events.

So, you know, you could literally be like Max Verstappen.

And if you haven't done that, yeah, if you haven't done

a GLTC race before, you have to go to these meetings.

And I thought that was cool.

You know, I went through it last year.

You get to meet some folks, talk to some people.

And so we asked me just to say a few words to try to have, like,

a guest speaker for each new to GLTC meeting.

And, you know, I talked about my experience there and, you know,

you know, things, some track notes.

And they asked me to, you know, say a personal thing.

So I just said, hey, you know, look, we're at Lime Rock Park.

I mean, how awesome is it just to be here racing here at this beautiful track,

you know, and think about how hard you've worked all the time,

energy money spent to get here, you know, you know, let's let's let's be thankful.

Let's let's keep that as a mindset when we're racing each other out there.

And, you know, maybe that'll inform our decision making

if we're the heat of a battle, you know, you know.

So anyway, just kind of shared that.

And I thought it went over well.

So that was a nice moment.

So one of our friends Matt from Lemons has a saying

that he's he's professed many times over.

And I've heard him on a podcast or two say it.

Don't be a dick. Be a dude.

Hmm. Yeah.

Be the guy you want to race or the girl you want to race, you know.

Absolutely. I mean, I think we talked about this before.

Like it doesn't matter if it's, you know,

lap 743 lap and fighting for position 64 out of 80

or you're battling for, you know, the GLTC championship,

but the last lap of the championship, it's like, you know, how you do,

how you race someone speaks volumes about yourself and

the kind of respect in moments you have executing the battle, you know,

driving right up to the limit, you know, hard, but but not overstepping it.

You know, that that you do with the driver.

It's one of the most rewarding things you can do in racing.

So now, yeah.

And the driver people, they don't want to work on their car at all.

And then even the mechanical car people, they don't want to do sheet metal.

So nobody, nobody wants to fix that part of the car.

No, sir. No, no, sir.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm lucky.

I'm on my like third front bumper cover now,

which really doesn't make any contact ever. But yeah, it's not fun.

No, that's not the fun part, you know, like playing with the suspension,

playing with the engine, playing with the, you know, OK, cool.

I can see a little bit of that.

But, you know, buffing, buffing out a quarter panel and bond owing

and sanding and painting. Oh, I'm out out.

No, no, no. That's why I leave my car with the buffs and bruises.

The bruise is not in any way, you know, it's a race car. Exactly.

Awesome. All right.

So last year, I believe GLTC had

split into two groups, if I remember right.

But practice qualifying was one big.

I got lots of words. One big group. We'll go with group.

Yes, group or just group.

It was it was there's lots of words for it.

Group is the nice one.

It's a cluster group.

Yes, cluster cluster is one of the words. Yes, I think, yeah.

Yeah, I was lucky. It was not so bad.

They did end up just running one race group all weekend, which was good.

But yeah, the practice call wasn't that bad.

You know, I made sure I got out there early, like I was, you know,

the third man in line, you know, the prior group and the false grid open.

I stuck right in there.

I got in some some decent clean laps.

You know, me, Katil, Smadgar, darling, you know, we were all kind of on our own there.

So it wasn't bad.

I I thought I did a good representative lap.

But I think traffic was mostly decent for everybody.

So OK, so it wasn't it wasn't quite the.

Tricky one, you know, a little bit.

Look at the draw last year.

Yeah, it was worse last year for some reason.

I think we did have a little bit more cars.

I think you had 60.

Yeah. So it that was too much for one group.

I think the most allowed to run now,

it might have been a recent change is forty five or forty six or something.

I think you were close to that, but you'll see it not not over for sure.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, even just having another five cars, six cars is a big difference.

So so we had some plans.

We had some prognostications going into this event and I'm watching it.

And all of a sudden, there's this other BMW.

Paul Darling, what's up with that?

You weren't even like number one BMW, dude.

What happened? No, I know, I know, I know.

So yeah, so if you want me to rant for a minute or two, I have nothing better

to do on a podcast. All right.

All right. Well, we'll strap in.

So no, I'll give you the somewhat short version.

So Paul Darling, great driver.

He's a very talented sim racer as well.

You know, has done like really, really cool stuff

on like eye racing.

He recently, for example, like set the fastest time on the eye racing

GR 86 Cup competition at Lincoln Sonoma.

You know, so you guys know my sim racing background to compete, you know,

so he's he's the real deal. OK, this guy is the real deal.

And I had a good battle with him at middle.

We kind of went back and forth at middle.

I think I picked them, you know, for the final spot in the overall

obviously got got the final race for win after he started right behind me.

So I was able to gap them a bit at middle.

But he practiced a lot for Lime Rock

and he ran a special set up for Lime Rock and actually was testing.

He bought a time attack ticket and he was even testing two different tire widths.

And so he went with the 275

like an 11 inch wheel, maybe even bigger than that.

And he also has the 46 great platform

and he runs the flat tune modifier with the S 54 engine.

So a nice big, you know, he makes his power.

I think you'll just say around 226, 227

and he makes that power basically everywhere around 5000 RPM up to about 8000 RPM.

So, you know, a nice flat tune car, which is what the rules call for.

Really, if you want to be optimized, you have to run a flat tune.

I don't I'm not able to.

But also he ran the he basically went for the maximum cornering potential,

maximum heat capacity potential set up and it worked to treat.

Man, he was he was untouchable in the in the cornering.

So I ran a 245.

He ran a 275, you know, maybe like, like, I think like 150 pound

of weight, Delta, but if you look at the tire to weight ratio,

I mean, he had the tire to weight it because I ran intentionally 2 percent under

to try to get powered away back all that blah, blah, blah.

That was not the right move for sure.

That was a total fail.

And so, yeah, he had the cornering speed

and just walked away slowly put in a killer job.

I think he got 100 percent out of his car.

And, you know, you just got to give it up to him.

I mean, he he did a fantastic job.

So my head's off to fall down.

I had that that's a harder and win.

And just just to make sure we say it again,

because I think we've already said it once it's the dude can wheel, too.

So it's not 100 percent.

So he he's he's one of.

He's one of about like seven drivers

that I would put in GLTC where it's like

if you put us all in the same car and it was just about the driver,

he would be in competition for wins.

Like I I I believe from what I've seen racing with him,

you know, wheel to wheel.

Sometimes I'm in front.

Sometimes I was behind.

He he hits his marx, he's sharp.

He has like excellent technique, hits his apexes,

trail breaker and make the car wide.

Yeah, the whole yeah, yeah, he he's he's the real deal.

So yeah, yeah, I was shocked.

That was his first two wins ever in GLTC.

And he's been racing in this series for, I think, four years,

maybe. Yeah.

So that was surprising, you know, because he's he's that good.

So but, you know, he took an opportunity, you know,

the guy's running rewards way.

I was also carrying one percent, you know, which even one percent

on my car, a limerock is, you know, you know, two and a half

tenths per minute, you know, and that's, you know, that adds up.

And he did his homework, too.

I mean, he did.

He he he killed it.

And I I don't think anyone was happier for him than I was.

You know, I'm so happy that he got that, you know,

harder and victory.

And, you know, you know, maybe with some real changes next year,

too, that car will become even more competitive.

So yeah, my I could not be happier for Paul.

Darling, if you're listening, man, I'll say congrats again

for like the hundredth time future podcast.

Yes, absolutely.

He just doesn't smiling assassin.

He just doesn't.

So so obviously, since you're a longtime

Lister and subscriber on multiple platforms, you you listen

to our last podcast with Adam and I propose that we have a

tournament of champions with a fleet of either Sunday cup

cars or if we could get sponsorship, something like

the 86 BRZ.

Oh, I would love that.

Wheel to wheel.

And let's go see.

I also want a pack system for time attack.

So the multi class time attack packs.

That's what I want.

OK, all right.

Yeah, a little bit of venture racing with the stats.

Yeah, exactly.

Snack talk. Yeah.

Yeah, because I was nothing more than, you know, the guy

in club TR chewing out the guy in track modified or whatever.

You know, the more I would love to see you back in the car again.

I really would.

Yeah, Nick, when you get back in the car?

No.

Why don't why don't why don't you

strap into my car sometime?

You know, you know, don't threaten me with a good time there,

buddy. Yeah, I consider yourself threatened, both of you.

I guarantee I will bring the car back 100 percent fine, never

having gone off, because I do not push anybody else's

equipment to the absolute limit.

So follow a little girl.

She absolutely limits going to be just a little notch down.

That's fair.

I would love to go for a test run, though.

I think that would be really awesome.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I just took everybody off off off track again.

But I'm just saying, Bill was shocking.

I know, but it's been a little while since Bill's been in the car.

So she yelled at me for not getting in the car.

And I'm like driving home from the track with the car that she just

put into the wall and I was supposed to get in the car.

So why won't you get in the car?

Well, drive it into a bridge.

It's good. Sorry.

Can't yell at me for this one.

Anyway, so so let's see.

It looked I'm going to I'm going to preface this before we get to the races.

Lime Rock looks like a tremendous.

We've never done the full Lime Rock.

We've only done the the autocross and the skip back.

It looks like a tremendous course for like time attack,

but it looks really hard to pass.

I'm not sure if that's indicative because the cars are so close.

You almost there was a lot of passing.

I mean, it was more error connecting.

Like if somebody made an error, then you passed them,

but otherwise you weren't getting my exactly.

Yeah, for if you're racing anyone within, honestly,

three or four tenths in either direction,

if you're not that more faster than that,

like that much of a pace differential, it's almost impossible

to get by some more than unless they make a mistake.

Yeah, OK, that was right.

Yeah, it's it's almost like Monaco.

You know, how you qualify usually it will dictate how you finish.

There are two opportunities, however, asked me how I know.

Well, I don't know.

Mr. Cotil came up with a new one that I saw.

I was like, whoa, around the outside of the left hander.

Yeah. No, no, when he was passing going uphill.

Oh, when he passed Paul, I think.

Oh, OK, on the uphill.

Yeah, I could see that.

Yeah, I was like, oh, OK, that's that's that's some commitment

as Mr. Peter Krauss would say.

Commitment. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

No, well, you know, Eric, so this gets into a discussion

about the rules, which even Eric would not disagree with.

You know, Eric, Eric has the benefit of a great tire to weight ratio.

It's the best in the class by far.

The way I think that'll be changed for next year.

But that car does great in the straight line,

but he has just a little bit of an edge, you know,

being able to run a lot more tire at that weight.

So he has he has a little edge in the corners

and he's used that to full to his max potential this year.

I mean, he has pulled off some killer moves right within limits.

He went right underneath me in the West Bend on lap one of the second race.

Yes. I mean, that nice skid move.

Nothing I could do could not match the other cornering speed.

So yeah, he he he's demonstrated his overtaking abilities for sure.

So how does it feel to get passed by yourself?

I had another like two people come up to me and say, hey, you know,

if they ever said you look a lot like you're a good deal.

It's like, yeah, yeah, a couple of a couple of people say it

like every time I'm on their podcast.

Yeah, pretty much. It's not funny.

Yeah, you know, yeah, no, it was good.

I like Eric, man.

He he like a lot of like a lot of guys towards the front, you know,

hard worker, cool dude, great driver, love racing with him.

He'll race you hard, but fair. That's what I like, you know.

And we you know, we've exchanged a little butterfly kisses over the past

you know, year and a half, but you know, all good, you know,

nothing, nothing egregious.

So yeah, he did he did a great job,

especially carrying all the rewards weight as well.

And I and I helped Katil make some set up decisions for a limerock.

Well, I mean, you got to support yourself, you know, absolutely.

So yeah, I told him to go back to his other setup.

He was running.

So just a little tibet here, which you can show.

He was running in the higher weight and power category,

basically running in the 200 to 230 category

like myself and Paul Darling and others.

And he went significantly slower at middle because of it.

And that's because of the weight to power ratio

that you sacrifice running up there.

So he gained a little bit of acceleration after 100,

but was significantly slower in the corners.

And I said, you know, Eric, I probably shouldn't tell this.

You should you should go back to the 2,450 pound 1.99.

So he said, OK, Nick, I want to try that.

Sure, Debbie did and over a decade for him.

So well, it's not like it's not like he needs a lot of help.

But every little bit, you know,

it's well, you know, at the level of talent,

those little details matter, you know.

So, you know, it is what it is.

You know, I said this to him

right at the beginning of the season like Eric, you know, you know,

you're you're running and you're running stuff to 100. Right. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I just when we first reached out to him

to come on the podcast, future podcast guest,

it what we didn't even know that he was the driver that he is.

It was just all of the stuff that he's done on his channel, mostly Instagram.

And now he's starting to do YouTube a little bit more,

was just so instructive.

And it was like every week I'd send Vicki another.

Hey, this is how we should do it.

No, no, this thing that we've been working on, he's got the, you know,

and it was just I wanted to have him on and say thank you for that.

And then I find out that he's like a

a bajillion times, GLTC,

John, the challenge, you know, everything, you know, factory

engineer and blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, oh, it's kind of like when we had Sam Strano on and like podcast five

and we're asking what's an autocross.

Oh, sorry.

We had Sam Strano on and we're talking to him about autocross.

And it's like, what's a what's a cone?

You know, and we didn't realize he was like 14 time US champion.

And I'm listening. Oh, I feel like so stupid.

But anyway, we felt stupid many times over this podcast, but that's OK.

No, I've I, you know, I love what Eric does for the sport.

You know, so, you know, I that's one thing I try to do in my own way.

Right. We're different. You know, I've tried to be an yeah,

I tried to be an ambassador to motorsport for a while in my own way.

And, you know, I tend to do it on more on the one to one level.

But, you know, what Eric has done by documenting everything, it's it's so cool.

It's I think it's brought a lot of people into the sport or gotten people

a lot more excited about it than otherwise would not.

And so, you know, we all should be thankful that there are guys like Eric

that, you know, that that spend the time to document it

and make interesting content and help to keep the sport alive, you know,

because especially if a series like GLDC, which is, you know,

sort of like this spectator fan version of grassroots motor sports

and it continues to grow and like we need people like Eric.

I've tried to continue to try to get a little bit more of all myself, you know,

in doing it, but to show people all this other stuff, all all the other stuff

that leads up to the race.

And I mean, that's 90 percent of it.

I mean, I wish I documented even a fraction of the stuff I'm doing

in my garage almost every day and all my calculations and all the testing.

And now I think for some people to find that interesting, you know,

yeah, it's it's cool what Eric's done.

Yeah, you just you don't know what you don't know.

Like we've we've done a lot of things wrong because we didn't know any better,

but not because, you know, we're idiots.

It's just yeah, the problem's been solved.

Yeah. But if you don't know.

Like half the stuff that that really gets tricky is when it's

either something that's got a weird name or just the exact opposite.

It's got two normal a name so you can't Google it.

So you either don't know what the name is or it's like Kat, you know.

Now, Google Kat, see what you come up with and see how many cars things there are.

It's going to take a while before you get to catalytic converter and you're like, well.

And then, right, if you try to look something up, you will, as I'm sure

you've seen, often get fed bad information.

You know, yeah. Oh, that's a lot of fun.

Yeah. You know, there are tidbits of really good information online.

If you happen to get the right area, the right forum, the right person,

and they take the time to share their knowledge, but a lot of stuff, bad

information gets recycled and regurgitated and accepted as fact.

You know, and if you're new, you can't, you don't necessarily

have a really good nose to tell what's like, you know, a true.

Intellectually proven out solution versus a guy talking out his butt.

Trying to get, you know, clicks.

So yes, sir. Yes, sir.

So I'm not sure which which side of that we're on.

We might be moving towards the good side.

I'm not sure we've reached all the way there yet, but we're trying really, really hard.

I think you're headed in the right direction.

You know, it's all due to our podcast guests.

That's right. That's right.

So. So coming out of qualification, I think you were fourth or fifth before.

Yes, sir. Before.

So race one, how to go?

Race one, I was happy with.

It was certainly the best race of the weekend for me.

I just had Paul charge down a turn one with Paul Darling.

We go in too wide, got a nice clean run on the outside.

I think Keteel and the gentleman in the C8 Corvette, Aaron Lifty, I believe

his name, they went too wide inside of me and I just held my line,

stayed on the inside to the left hander, kind of stuck it in there.

And the left hander, kind of, you know, I was actually kind of pissed

because it didn't show it on the live stream.

But I made a quite nice move on the brakes to defend my second place,

sort of to re-attack actually to the apex of the left hander,

which you don't typically do that.

And I did that. Yeah, I'll share some video eventually.

But then held my line way outside of left hander

and then was able to clear in a second by the end,

I'm sorry, in the third by the end of the Paul Newman straight.

And then basically just sort of tried to hang on to Smedgard and Darling.

Smedgard had the fastest car by far.

He was kind of in his own, you know, league of performance.

Yeah, he wasn't that way in qualification,

but it looked like through the weekend, he was just like.

They're a different car.

Yeah, yeah. Well, he he was the only man in the field on the Maxis.

Five Maxis Maxis VR two.

So in that car, you've been testing, tweaking, building, you know,

it's optimized for GLTC.

He has a custom short ratio, six speed transmission.

So, you know, he's keeping the car in the peak power band.

And that's very important, very important in GLTC.

You know, that is a fully optimized GLTC prepped car.

And drive to and he can drive, man.

He's he's a driver.

So so yeah, he came there again with zero rewards weight as well.

And he he killed it.

So yeah, he he he he had he was kind of in his own zip code

checked out a little bit from Paul.

Paul checked out a little bit for me.

But then he had some problems.

He runs an aftermarket ABS system, had some faults, had to,

you know, finagle with the steering wheel, had some issues

that allowed me and Paul to get back by.

That allowed me to catch up to Paul.

And it was kind of like right on his bumper.

But then he just had the base.

He slowly walked away.

I was doing, you know, perfect cornering right on the limit.

He was still just inching away.

So if he's got higher speed, men's speed through the corner

then he can walk in the straightaway because he's starting higher.

Well, one out of percent.

Yeah. So and that's what you do, you know, when you have, you know,

275 versus a 245 and just just he he made the best.

He made the right setup decision.

I did not.

So but I can't blame myself fully, mostly extenuating circumstances.

But, you know, if I could Monday morning quarterback it and run the Maxis,

which I would have if it wasn't on band with like four days, you know,

five days before the event, so I couldn't get them.

That would have been that would have been awesome.

That would have been a much different story.

So, you know, whatever, it's all good.

Still had a great weekend.

But yes, so I ended up P2 there and but I did start to feel the tires

go off a little bit at the end, which will set us up for race two.

Yeah. So was race two that same day or was it the next morning?

I can't remember.

It was the next morning.

Yeah, that's that's what I thought.

Yeah. Yes, sir.

So starting in finishing position.

So you were.

Second P2 P2 outside Paul.

Yes. And then then the bad turn one, turn two, if I remember correctly.

Yes, it did. It was not good.

It was not it was not the you got landowed.

I think I did it.

I got I got a landowed big time.

I got freight train, you know, NASCAR up and down the hill.

And by the end of the first lap, I was fourth place or maybe even fifth.

I think fourth, yeah, I think fourth down the hill, Mr.

Cotill, you know, went went by me without an issue, tried to tried to sneak in

without losing as much time as possible.

And then I think I lost another position back to five because

Licti and the V8 Corvette Corvette got a little run on me down to one.

And once he got by me, though, I was able to just, you know,

basically sneak right behind him.

And then we walked away from six, seven, eight.

So, you know, was a nice hard fought P five until.

Until the caution.

Yep.

And then the whole field got a bunch back up together.

And I thought, oh, I'm sure this race is going to end, right?

This, you know, they're going to toss a checkered flag, right?

Oh, no, no, no.

Well, eventually they're going to eventually they're going to.

But they are a little less have one more laugh.

Yeah. And so that sucks.

Because my car is, you know, it's not slow on a straight line.

But if you look at like the top 10 cars, it is definitely the slowest

in the straight line of the top 10. Oh, OK.

Oh, yeah. And so I got a great jump.

I mean, I was on that light bam, and you can even see on the video.

But Matt Walbaum in the S 2000

crept up a little bit next to me, crowded me into one as he should.

So, you know, maybe halfway to my bumper.

So I had to hold my line into one and then Mr.

Emile tab, flying Emile tab in the K24 Miata with a head of steam.

He he walked us a couple of car lights.

That thing goes good. Yes, he did.

And made a great move.

Hats off to Emile, another another great driver.

Nice late breaking move around the outside three wide in the one.

I also had to check it out because the Corvette in front of me,

who kind of got a little squeezed, he kind of parked down the apex.

So I had like nowhere to go.

And then it was just Matt and Emile around the outside.

Right there, boom, fell back to seven.

And that started that sort of like begin the downward spiral of the week.

Oh, the two starts.

You basically got screwed as badly as you possibly could.

Yes, sir. Oh, man.

Oh, man, I was mad about that one in the panic, too.

Did you go out and kick a tire?

I want to go out and I wanted to, you know,

but he had the wrong tire to Gatorade's.

You got to look at it this way. You're still alive.

I was still alive rock.

No, I did. I did.

I got it out of my system.

But I was just just need a few minutes.

Just give me give me five, maybe 10, maybe 10, maybe 10.

It was good. I was thinking out of the tent, man.

I had all my friends and me.

It's all good, you know, and then I believe if I have my races correctly,

the luck of the dice kind of kicked in the teeth just one more time.

I did. So so for race three,

I started seventh and then again, got basically freight trained at the start

past two wide help race four.

Sorry. Right.

Yeah. So so then race three, I finished eighth, though,

because one car had an issue.

So that was like a hard fought, you know, eighth.

I had a nice battle with Lena Chin, I think.

Former podcast guest, future podcast guest.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

But then but then so race four.

So the worst part is, so I think I was it was something like I finished eighth.

Yeah, I finished eighth three. Yes.

And they did a seven spot invert.

Yeah, race, which means that if I didn't get

screwy, tootied in race two with the restart,

surely I would have held on to fifth, sixth, no worse than seventh.

I would have started on pole or up near the front.

And that surely would have been enough just points wise

to probably grab the third podium spot.

But no, I started eighth and I lost another spot.

Who rolled who rolled those dice?

I don't know.

We won some, you know, it's like that trick

and Star Trek or something.

You know, they got Magneto or whatever.

Eight, no seven. Damn it.

Yeah, that that was brutal.

So look, you know, you you get some good looking bad luck.

It was it was not a good luck weekend for me.

No, it wasn't.

But I did learn a ton and more optimistic than ever for pit.

So I really did learn a lot by these mistakes, though.

But I really mean that. I'm not just saying that.

So OK, all right.

So so so you gave yourself a you gave yourself a walk into you.

What are we going to do for pet?

So I am very excited about.

So late breaking news.

Thank you, Mr. Adam Jubei, who I just spoke with a little while ago.

Confirm that unlike last year,

they are leaving the rewards weight on for the final race.

Oh, because I didn't win any races at Lime Rock,

which I think I would have at least won one or two

if I was on the 255 Mac. No reward for you.

No rewards for me.

So I get to keep my only one percent rewards weight.

Meanwhile, all, you know, the fastest cars,

you know, Matan, Patel, Magnuson are all carrying four.

And now Mr. Darling and now Mr. Darling, two percent.

So I know how much faster my car would have been

simply running the right tire at Lime Rock.

And if you add that delta to some other things that I'm doing,

it's going to be pretty interesting at pit race.

I'll I'll just go out on a limb and say,

I think the only people that are capable of beating me

at pit race are Erica Teal and Andy Smedgar.

I think I'm going to beat.

I'm going to outpace, I think, significantly everybody else.

And that includes EMAG and Matan only because they are carrying that weight.

And then the pit race circuit is very good for my car.

And I know the track well and those factors.

It's not quite like Lime Rockish, but it's the most Lime Rockish track

in terms of cornering potential, which, of course, is going to help my car.

So yeah, I've been pretty accurate with all my predictions thus far.

And I bet we'll do a post race on how that worked out.

You know, we will.

If you'll put up with us, we'll definitely do.

Yeah. So so so I'm just going to say it.

I am I am calling with an 80 percent confidence interval

that it will be my first overall podium of the series at pit race.

Excellent. And Andy doesn't do every event driving wise.

He does not.

I assume he's going to be there because ASM is running a test day

the day before, so I assume he's going to be there.

So he's going to be flying, you know, he's he's going to be flying.

So yeah. Yeah.

But I'll be on the same tire as him.

Yeah. Do who?

Big, big difference.

So yeah, we'll see.

Could be.

Could be fun.

I might I might have a scoop for you.

We'll do that in the Onlyfans podcast.

OK, all right. Yeah.

So are you going to do like like a live on site?

I am. I am really thinking about which weekend I think you need to do that.

October 10th, 11th, 12th, something like that.

I know my if I have to put the flag banner out and put like a table.

If my beautiful bride will let me get away.

We I would love for you to bring the dog

over to Lime Rock. No, no, it's a bit over a pit.

Miss Barbados is going to be there.

Miss Barbados, I love to meet Miss Barbados.

Yeah, yeah, you never met her yet.

No, not yet.

I think we talked over the phone all the time.

Yeah, you guys are really good at that.

Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to do my negotiation.

Once we once we do our Onlyfans post-podcast.

And OK, that's good.

So so cool.

So Lime Rock didn't go as you wanted,

but you think you think you got a handle on it now?

That's OK. We can't we can't have it all, Nick.

Yes, we know. I mean, I mean, you did have what you got to share.

I will. I do. I do.

You're right. Well, you know, they say, right?

You you win or you learn.

And I definitely learned some things.

Yeah. You know, I must be the smartest guy you know, then.

You did so well at the last race.

I mean, oh, my gosh. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, look, I observed

from a science perspective, right?

Being behind Paul Darling in a BMW,

granted it's knee 46, he ran the heavier flat, you know, right?

Observing how what I had sort of calculated out,

which I hadn't really tested was how the tire to weight scales.

I won't bore the listeners with explaining all that.

But I was able to observe his car

matching or exceeding my acceleration.

But really, that really wasn't it.

The acceleration was was close.

It was the cornering speed.

And so I learned a bit more about what decisions to make

with the rules as they are now.

I'm going to apply that to my pit race setup.

In addition to the tire compound, I learned that the narrow compound,

unless you have a track that cool conditions and allows the tires to stay cool,

running that 2 percent undersized, particularly with a sensitive tire that I was running

is not the right move at all.

And so, again, I learned I got to take I made the wrong decision.

I was was kind of forced into that decision, but I still could have made a different one.

So I'm taking that knowledge now to pit in addition to some other setup changes,

which I know are going to be worth time after studying,

observing, discussing and testing a couple of things myself.

So you put all that together with another revised power tune.

And I found out some things on the dyno, which I also won't get into detail with.

But it's definitely going to be the strongest package

I brought to pit to any GLTC race yet.

And combined with the fact that the rewards weight isn't coming off,

it's just going to be really, really cool.

So so as Bill sometimes told us early on when we were doing a sport together,

did you lose or were you beat?

I was I was first and foremost beat by by myself

because I didn't make the the right decision. OK.

You know, you didn't do anything to lose, though.

Right. There's a difference.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

You brought the you brought the gun you had and they had a bigger gun.

Yeah. A couple of things stuck in the chamber.

But, you know, that's OK.

Well, we'll work it out.

It needs to go back and service it a little bit.

And then that's right. That's right.

Oil it up a little bit of balustal. That's that's right.

Well, something something something something.

Yes. Yes. Yes, sir. Yes.

Yeah. Like an inch of tire on both both sides would have helped a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's other things to detail.

But yeah, yeah, we're going to add a lot of tire for free.

It's it's going to be good.

So free tire, free tire, good tire.

So last thing before we are are somewhat polite to your time.

Are you part of the Firelapse gang?

Are you looking at data using that?

I have not used that.

If they put one in my car, I'd be happy to use it.

I don't know if they're going to require it for next year.

Well, it's not it's not a you can use any data and just put it into the system.

And then you can compare.

I didn't know that.

So it has like a like like a global import for data.

Yeah, it's agnostic to whatever I got it.

Yeah, yeah, very cool, very cool.

And then you can knowing how much you get into your data and analysis.

That might be something that you could find.

I think it might be a I'm not going to say it's a missing link for you.

But I think it might it might help every little bit helps, you know,

because, you know, I mean, I find stuff on data every single race,

you know, even like at middle like the I was sitting in my hotel room

going over min speeds through all the corners and something

that was kind of on my mind, which I think I said in the last podcast

was that right hander into Thunder Valley.

And in the simulator using fourth year was faster.

How do I know I did like a couple hundred laps and tested it.

But the sim is not exactly like real life.

And my min speed was simply too low.

And I gained consistently like one to two tenths there.

And that was like four finishing positions.

If if I simply did not make that one decision, that one change based on data,

I would not have won that final race.

Yeah, it can literally mean the difference between winning and losing.

Absolutely.

Well, sir, we may actually have a live podcast with you

at Paris. I would.

That would be incredibly exciting.

I would be quite fun.

It's one of our favorite tracks.

Actually, I think it is our favorite track, Miss Vicki.

It is. You know what?

I do love it.

It's it's Miss Barbados favorite track as well.

Really? Yeah.

She loves it.

Just the air, the layout, nice and clean, flat, you know,

and the barbecue place.

Bathrooms are new, just nice.

Just the barbecue, the barbecue there.

So did we take the the food truck?

The food truck is killer.

It is.

And we have an Italian place that's about five miles away.

Spectacular. Oh, OK.

All right.

Oh, we'll we'll share some secrets.

It'd be fun.

Right.

So until until we get together again,

we might have to do a race by race breakdown.

Oh, that would be fun.

Oh, I love that.

We can go we can go like hot out of the driver seat.

You know, I want to get crazy with that.

That's right.

I'll stick the microphone in the into your car.

Oh, how did that?

Yeah. First, I'd like to thank STP and Dodge Motor.

I like it. I like it.

So sounds good, sir.

Well, thank you again.

Thank you for having me.

Very enjoyable.

Like Mr.

Jabe says, it's good therapy for the soul.

It is.

But we are either where you can

entertain and enjoy the glory or vent a little bit

and get rid of all the bad stuff.

That's right. That's right.

Thank you. Let's go for let's go for some glory at pit racing.

All right. That sounds like a plan.

All right. Thank you, Dick.

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About this episode

Nick Barbato shares his experiences racing in the GLTC series at Lime Rock Park, discussing car setup challenges, tire choices, and tough competition, especially from rival Paul Darling. He reflects on race strategies, the impact of rewards weight, and the difficulty of overtaking on a tight track. Nick also highlights the camaraderie and sportsmanship in racing, the importance of data analysis, and looks ahead optimistically to the upcoming Pitt Race event with hopes for a podium finish. The episode offers an insider's perspective on grassroots racing dynamics and technical insights.

Chevrolet Corvette Datsun Mi-Do Honda Fit EV Honda S2000 Mazda MX-5 / Miata Toyota GR 86

Original notes

GHiT 0727: Nick Barbato Returns to Talk GLTC at Lime Rock 2025 with GridLife

Nick Barbato returns to talk about the recent GLTC races and more at Lime Rock Park.

A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/LimeRockGLTC2025

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

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