GHiT 0731: Gary McCormick Returns to Talk B Spec Racing
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Who hope to one day be the world's greatest driving heroes.
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And there soon to be Wonder Woman, Vicky Fisher.
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They are the Garage Heroes in training team.
Welcome to the Garage Heroes in training podcast.
I'm still trying to get home from Huntsville.
I hate Virginia.
My name is Bill.
Who else is host today?
I'm Vicky.
That's right, honorary host, honorary guest,
honorary team member,
but did something rather spectacular.
Welcome back to the podcast, Gary McCormick.
Thank you.
So you were smart.
We were dumb.
We got rid of a car.
You have taken it,
seen the foibles of having a car that we own
that we never really got to fix the way we wanted to
in the reservoir.
Well, I don't think resurrect is probably a little harsh,
but we don't know what we don't know.
That's right.
And we never got into that car.
So we bought it and essentially parked it.
Actually, you have more laps in it than I do
before you bought it.
So you said, hey, what are you doing?
And I said, well, we're not using it.
So you bought our old beast back car.
That I did.
That I did.
And then you came up to pick it up
and we were going to dinner and thank you, Penn Dot.
I had a blow out of my tire.
So we didn't go to dinner and you had to get rolling.
So it was it was a calamity of things.
It started off with ignominious beginnings,
but I think you've you've got everything pretty much in place.
What did you have to do to the car?
So it's more what I'm doing.
So we're on an adventure.
So we had to do new calipers.
We had to go through some hubs and studs.
We had to pick a part.
We replaced some axle boots, re-grease things.
There were some suspension parts that were kind of funky
that we updated a little bit.
There was some restrictor plate stuff
we had to sort out for the class.
A lot of the a lot of it was just getting back square
with with sort of the current gen SCCA like spec line,
which was good and a lot of cleanup.
And there's a there's a whole manifest.
I was actually talking to somebody right before meeting up
with y'all about the the next step on these cars.
So the Honda uniquely doesn't self-adjust its valves.
Nope.
And it is suspected that that might be an outlet
outstanding thing along with the good old direct injection
getting in and walnut blasting the the intakes.
You actually want them to seal?
What's what craziness?
I know.
Well, as you know, and I actually I just for to brush up
I listened to I guess granddad B-spec Frank's episode
with y'all and you know B-spec there's not big margins
right and because it's a it's a Honda fit
with a restrictor on it with limitations to it.
Every every little bit of horsepower counts
and we want to eke out every little bit of horsepower
and I've been experiencing some some disparities on track
with it.
So some some well documented, not the problem
between the steering wheel and seat concerns.
But but yeah, no, it's been it's actually been a lot of fun.
The you know, obviously, I was at Daytona this past weekend
I was at Sebring two before that.
I'm in that kind of blessed middle ground
where my home tracks are Daytona and Sebring
and both are less than two hours away, which is super cool.
That's that's not what we had when you were up here.
No, no, no, no, no, I don't I don't miss the three and a half
to four hour drive to NJMP.
Or you were halfway there.
Exactly. Or even I mean, even for me,
Thompson was three and a half to four, depending on, you know,
how the how the city's
New York gets in the way a little bit.
It does. It does.
I will say that it is harsh on a bespec having a super speedway
be one of your own tracks.
That's true.
It is very noticeable that our that our cars kind of per across.
But, you know, it's been it's been a lot of fun.
I've had a lot of fun driving it.
You know, run some competitive races
on some of the Sebring configurations,
run some wildly uncompetitive races at Daytona
and been lucky enough to still finish
where they somewhere somewhere.
We'll get that. We'll get the where. OK.
So some of our home crowd
listening fans may sit there and say,
why is he so worried about these little itty bitty
like minor horsepower things?
It's a big deal when you've got maybe a hundred of them.
Every little bit helps.
It really does. Every every ounce of power
you can put on the ground, you know,
it's a whole new driving experience, even things like.
I've had to consider the smoothness of my inputs.
I would hope, yeah, because I came
from a car that was very happy to be pointed
and shot in whatever direction it was going.
And, you know, high power, rear wheel drive,
stop on a dime, stand on its nose type,
Porsche background and bespect cars.
There's a slight difference, smooth as fast.
Yes. Yes, for sure.
So so we can't even say you did a rent to own.
You just kind of came up and we let you have it
because we were like, no, you're flying up here.
You're not paying. Yeah.
So so take us from that
your first couple of times on track with it to now.
What's how's it feeling?
So I guess when we did NJMP,
that was on some well loved 200 tread wear tires.
That's true. I didn't even think about that.
Yeah. With with.
And I think I had a comment about like it felt even as bespect for me.
It like there's a crazy grip associated with it.
But, you know, I think there's
I think lightning and NJMP was a very bespect friendly track.
Yeah. Yeah.
There are no real big straightaways.
There are some very tight low speed turns
that you can take advantage of the fact that it's a momentum car
and will be entering at, you know, full tilt
at the same speed that another car
would have to do some heavy braking to get to.
So the I mean, the progression from there was obviously
us talking about it.
So that was fun.
That kind of wet my palate again for the the super fun bespect cars.
Yeah, I did some looking around at a couple of different ones.
And then we talked about coming up there
and a U-Haul rental and a flight to a very small airport later.
Tiny tiny way.
Got it got it down here.
Got it in the hands of a Honda specialist
who oddly enough between the time he I started working with him.
And now he is now my neighbor
and he's less than a mile down the road, which is really hilarious.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
Yeah, he also moved kind of out to the country
and has a shop in on the property now and things.
But there are just Honda things that I didn't have experience with
that I needed a, you know, a steady hand with.
So we we learned things and they're just little things about Honda brakes
and there's little things about the hubs and the transmissions
you really need to kind of consider that are different
than where I was working previously.
Right.
But took it out, had had.
A couple runs at Daytona, I think two,
including with some cars
that I think will be very near the pointy end of the runoffs.
Got to learn a little bit about the bump draft in B-spec, right?
So like the proximity of it.
Well, they must love you
because you're like the the brick
that has the biggest cross section in the entire world out there.
Well, I mean, it's it is interesting.
And that's actually why we started looking at like what was up with the engine
because it's, you know, driver driver experience
probably three or four seconds off the pace.
But for me to be eight or nine seconds off the pace
and have it to always manifest in the straightaway.
Then you start to get into, OK, what's under the hood of this?
Is the brake dragging?
Is there, you know, other stuff like that we're kind of playing with?
But yeah, did a couple races finished
in the back of the pack, but not last.
There's always an F-prod car and an H-prod car
that wants to or an ITB in SCCA that are that are, you know, old.
You know, this past weekend, it was an Audi Quattro.
It's the same generation as the Volkswagen Sharaco kind of car.
It was just puttering along, kind of trying to keep up with me,
which is funny.
But yeah, did did two races at Daytona.
Did one shakedown day.
Did, you know, some time at Sebring.
I did really well at Sebring, split it in a four car field, ended up
second in the first race and first in the second race by about a hair.
Probably having more to do with the fact
that I've turned more laps at Sebring than anywhere else for me.
Right. Yeah, done done some little, you know,
we redid some wiring inside the car, fresh belts, fresh fire system
upgraded from the kind of like pull and spray version to a proper
two handle fire system wired in cameras and cool suits and things like that.
Because you're not an option down here in Florida.
They're kind of a way of life.
Yeah, I would say.
So I can't think of a worse track for a B-spec car than Daytona.
Maybe Road America.
So much fun.
Oh, I'm not saying it's not fun.
Just saying. Yeah.
I mean, if you can, if your ego can put the blinders on.
Around the fact that you are, you know.
That the cars that are slower than you were older than your parents are.
Then, yeah, like you can definitely have a lot of fun.
I mean, throwing the B-spec car into the bus stop.
Oh, yeah, the into the infield and Le Mans chicane,
which, you know, obviously trips people up, you know,
was featured in the F1 movie with the Turner car blowing through
the ballards there kind of in that opening scene.
But I wish you right.
Yeah, right.
But it's it's a it's a lot of it's a lot of it's a lot of fun.
And the car stopped well for having drum rears.
But like just going through there and being able to in tight quarters,
pick up speed on cars that don't expect it like being caught by the race
leaders and on a three and a half mile long track like Daytona
with that much straightaway, you're going to get caught,
like you're going to get lapped.
It's going to happen.
Right.
Like the entire the entire B-spec field would expect to get lapped
by a competitive either prod or I.T.
Right.
Tide field.
But yeah, super, super fun.
I think there are probably worse tracks for B-specs.
But I haven't been to many of.
I wasn't saying it wasn't fun for your car.
I'm just sitting there saying if you if you want to have a disparity
between other groups and B-spec, those are probably the two that I would say.
Yeah, they hurt you the most because maybe Coda,
but I don't really count code as one of our tracks.
That's that's somebody else's track.
Yeah, it doesn't.
Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't come up very often.
And it's actually what was interesting is the.
So I've raced at Daytona against the minis, the Sonics, the Mazda twos.
And the Yaris and Daytona does allow you to see the little nuances,
even in the B-spec field, like the joke about the Sonic being a big block.
Big block, you know, Sonic, you can really see because it is straight as an arrow.
We'll just take off.
And this past weekend, I was racing against a really cool dude who builds a lot of them.
And that that car in a straight line is just so ridiculously fast.
I mean, relatively.
He's he's a materially more talented driver than I am.
So like nose to nose at a straight line with, you know, the pedal to the floor.
It gets it gets to inch away a little bit.
So it's it's a lot of fun.
Yeah, well, you know, when the.
When the performance is as is, you know, tight but low at every little thing.
Right. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you can scrub.
You end up scrubbing speed in like weird places you don't expect.
Yeah, but at the same time, you know, you get up on the high banks at Daytona,
you come out of turn six onto NASCAR one and you're up there at 30 degrees
like everybody else and no lift into the seat.
No, well, I'm learning there's no lift in general in a lot of places.
I've I've heard from a couple of my friends
at race B-spec that it wrote America, you lose speed as you're going up the hill.
And 100 percent on the straight away.
And that in lemon's cars on the whole like, you know,
you're shifting in the seat hoping you can like swing back and forth
when we race the minivan at Road America.
Yeah. And that had some that had some horses under the hood.
Yeah, but it's like double yours.
Giddy up, giddy up.
You're one step away from opening the door and start kicking like a skateboard.
Absolutely. For sure.
So so I tormented you on Facebook when I saw the news.
I'm like, I hear the crowd chanting pod, pod, pod.
What? So you did a little thing.
You won the you won your spot.
You got the big the big step.
I didn't get the big step.
I got the second step.
Well, it's a step, dude.
That's that's true. That's true. I did.
I did. So I did get second place at Daytona.
And for the first time, at least in my experience there,
they let us celebrate in Victory Circle. Yeah.
That's pretty sweet.
I've seen the picture of it.
Oh, yeah.
The listeners wouldn't have seen the picture of it.
Oh, they will on the Facebook.
But but it's it's really surreal and having
having my wife and son there.
I think the crowd was chanting popcorn, popcorn,
because my son was there with the scout selling popcorn.
Oh, nice. About the day. Excellent.
In addition to torquing wheels for anybody who would let him,
including me, he did my tire pressures,
which was kind of cool for the first time
because he's eight. That's awesome.
He's 50 50 now, letting all the air out
or letting some of the air out.
Dude, I mean, somewhere between there is what we need.
Yeah. Yeah.
But it was really cool.
It was a really cool experience.
It was nice to be up there.
You know, I got to I got to do my little shout out
for like the Central Florida region, SCCA workers.
They are they were so good.
They were so good to the family.
They were so good to Sarah.
They were so good to Jack.
They were they were awesome around keeping us safe,
keeping us moving.
You know, I I mean, I did three of the four sessions
like straight green the whole way through.
Wow. Maybe a local yellow Daytona will hot pull.
And and they're they're arguably some of the best in the business.
Like I'd say they're equal to Road America,
who would be the other track I would point out and go.
Right. They're good at like being set up
to get cars off the track.
But yeah, like, I mean, we do the whole like green to checker.
There's a campaign in the club right now, green to checker.
And we were darn close.
Yeah. So.
When when you're racing a beast back at Daytona.
How many breaking events do you think there should be?
Like where you touch it?
I'm counting if you touch it.
Yeah. So there's there's become this new technique
of sort of brushing the brakes.
Yes.
Where, again, in the Porsche and the Boxster,
you brush the brakes and your chest still hits the belts.
Yes. Right. And you you pop it and kind of move.
There's a lot more lifting.
I feel like the beast back technique has something
that a lot of driving coaches really try to drill out of you.
Yeah. Like I I'd assume Ross would probably be like,
you know, you want to be on the throttle or on the break
and you don't want to be off a whole lot, right, in general.
I think in beast back, talking to some of the faster racers,
there's an amount.
There's a there's a degree of like like coming into turn one
at Daytona, which is a big.
You know, is a big spot, right?
You're changing.
Yeah. So there's there's a there's a moment of my breaking point now
is actually a lift and then kind of what I would consider
the point of no return of the turn is actually where you give it the brakes.
So it's a very different technique.
Like imagine, you know, you're you're you're lifting at the one
and, you know, you know, in the Boxster, I was breaking at the two,
right, but I'm lifting at the one and then breaking at the negative one
almost into the turn and then full wide open from there on out.
So so it's like a break, break gas.
It's like a light switch.
There's no there's no feathering in.
It's just, you know, straight down to the floor.
But I think there's probably turn one.
Turn three.
Turn three is interesting because you have to you even have to get down
to second gear at a beast back car.
That's the international horseshoe.
OK, I'm around.
And then there's the other horseshoe before you lead out to six.
So there's probably one, two, three, four, five places we break.
Properly. So so coming from your
background, right, to to the ultimate
rear end suspension design that is the Honda Fit, right.
Little difference in what it's demanding of the driver.
Um, yeah, I actually and and I will probably,
you know, focus in higher power with more interesting suspension cars.
But like there's more thought, you have to be more thoughtful
and caring about how you're loading the car up,
especially moving to front wheel drive like that.
Both. Yeah.
I think I think the spec suspension in a B spec is,
you know, while being, you know, you know,
consistent across the board is actually a great suspension, right?
I really like that suspension.
Yeah, it works out to balance everybody.
Absolutely.
But I think I think there's more kind of care.
Where the more that in the Porsche, I needed more racecraft.
Yes. Proper racecraft car to car.
In the B spec, it's more driving technique.
OK. And I think there's yeah.
And there's definitely little sensations like your rear end dyno.
What I call the sense and the breaking free sensation.
There's a lot more sliding.
There's a lot more consideration of the curves
because it upsets the car more because it just soak it up.
But yeah, the little like, oh, I'm breaking free.
And then forgetting you're in a front wheel drive car
that's low power with slicks in the rear end, just going to kind of hang out.
Yeah, it's fine. It's fine.
I don't mind.
It's it's it's it's different.
But but yeah, like I said,
I think it's also less forgiving of like little errors.
Like I definitely had laps where.
You know, I got caught up for a second or, you know, I'm still learning.
I'm still getting comfortable with the car, you know,
I'll slightly miss a shift or that's something and and it's just like
there's no, you know, even if you pin it, you're not getting that back.
No, no, you're going to you're going to take another lap to get that back.
Well, I mean, so before the before you bought this car,
how much experience did you have with racing like stagecoats suspensions?
You know, I mean.
I'm having to think other than
you know, I was obviously time trialing the Sonic.
Oh, were you? OK. Yeah.
So I had I had a turbo Sonic that I was looking to turn into a T4 car for a while
that was was just so much fun.
That was the car I got to in the rain.
I could lead nine elevens in Corvette's around
Thunderbolt because I had all the traction in the universe to play with.
Yeah. Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, I guess a little bit, not not not a sufficient amount to really
do appreciate it, but but like I'm getting into the three wheel movement now.
It's definitely it's definitely getting there.
So when we do the the Fast and Furious
Storytime questions, we say front wheel drive, rear wheel drive or all wheel drive?
Have you have you crossed over into the wrong way?
So I have done my first experience with all wheel drive was absolutely surreal.
It was at Road America in a really cool Subaru.
And I am there for that.
If I have somebody riding shotgun, who is a Subaru guru, like those folks were.
Oh, yeah, but especially if it rains as well.
Yeah, I will absolutely.
I can only imagine like the the light front wheel drive cars do so well.
Like that car would have been glued down.
All right. So your preference is front wheel.
Well, he hasn't crossed over all the way yet.
Yeah. I mean, there's a if it was the big step, you would.
It's different. It's different.
I still have like these crazy like boy
aspirations of, you know, a retired NASCAR SPO.
Oh, wow. Right.
Like and or or like a GTX or GT1 car.
That's not a bespect car.
That is not a bespect car at all.
Just like the sheer like the the racing power and the smell of it
and the big tires and, you know, that being said,
there's being at the races around those cars.
I am so happy to have a bespect car.
I can't even imagine the, you know, just just from the.
And again, I'll touch on like the benefits of bespect, like just the fact that,
like you kind of just feed and water the car.
I mean, you can walk around the paddock with Jack all day.
Exactly.
You can you can have a lot of fun with the car.
I think the little things are important, but the big, you know,
I'm not going through four sets of Hoosiers on a weekend.
Like Daytona was, you know, I've turned this past weekend.
I turned my fastest laps yet at Daytona on tires that were on their fourth weekend.
Oh, you're not doing that.
You're you're old NASCAR car and and the no, you're not.
You're definitely not and, you know, talking to the folks from
a good year who makes our spec tire, like that's fine.
Like people are doing that, like the the cars I was racing against
were in the exact same, excuse me, position.
There are, you know, optimally, you want to be on your fourth or fifth
heat cycle with the tires.
If you really want like a qualifying lap, like I think the guys at the runoffs
will get tires beforehand and come into it with like cycled tires and stuff.
But for somebody who's a regional racer, the fact that I can go four weekends
unless something bad happens, I can go four weekends on super speedways.
Yeah, like between Sebring, which like respect the bumps,
you know, and Daytona, that's, you know, our track temps are through the roof down here.
Yeah, it's it's September, but it's not September there.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, track temps were still 80, 90 degrees this weekend and that was down.
But but yeah, like it's it's it's very cool to be able to do that.
So good decision.
I'm having a lot of fun with it.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm I'm I'm working a few things out.
Yeah. Right. That needed to get done.
I. Well, you got to make it yours, too.
I mean, there's always that. Yeah.
There's definitely, you know, the.
There's a few anime stickers on the back, which is very me.
There's a few there's a few things about it
that are that are kind of coming along.
I added a black racing stripe down the front, which we saw to kind of make it
make it my own a little bit.
But yeah, there's once I get it to the point where there's parody,
where I think at least I believe there's parody with the car.
And there's like quirky little things about it that I think maybe
hadn't been updated since the B spec rules had changed.
No, definitely. We didn't do it for sure.
Yeah. Like I think that like the tune in the car, the tune is for the old
restrictor, not the current restrictor kind of all over the joint.
But luckily, Central Florida is a hotbed of.
Honda hot boy like there's a couple.
There's a couple there. Yeah.
So we've got we'll we'll be getting some some help with that.
But yeah, no, I think it's this is the best thing.
And I can't I can't say enough having owned a couple other cars
like how, you know, I've done a ride and drive.
I've flown into stuff.
I've done the race school type series and things like I think B spec.
If you're willing to do the basics.
I can't can't beat it.
Like I should have I should have followed my early instincts
before the Porsche and just gone B spec.
And I think I probably would have had more fun racing earlier.
It would have been a different type of racing.
Sure. Gotten as far into endurance.
But but certainly it's it's been it's been good.
Yeah.
So what's your what's your plan going forward?
You're going to stay regional this year?
I'm going to stay regional this year, to be honest, I'm so.
I don't know what what kind of what's out there.
Because when you have an eight year old who's 40.
And that's that's always going to be part of the situation.
Yeah. So there's there's a lot to that.
You know, I'm definitely going to run a couple of the fun races.
I feel like because of the tracks I have available to me here.
It's like they're all bucket list tracks.
Like the guys I've run with, you know, in the past couple of weeks,
guys who placed in the top five at runoffs and stuff.
They're like, wow, this is my first time at Daytona.
This is my like, you know, seabring full course is like a big deal.
I'm still kind of glowing in that.
So I don't feel the need to like really branch out.
At this point, I've done most of my like bucket listy tracks
with the exception of some in California.
But but I think I'm going to stay pretty regional.
I'm going to try to get up to Rhode, Atlanta next year.
And that would be fun in the beast back car.
I think it would.
I think it's a it's a great course for that.
And I think, again, like robling, I think would be great.
No, yeah, car, CMP would be great.
And in a beast back car and the work I've put in here,
like it all approached that with, I think, a more competitive car
and more competitive package, fingers crossed, more competitive driver.
I'm in the process of seeking higher help.
I'm finally at the point where I'm like, I think a coach would be useful.
I need somebody else to see something that I'm not seeing. Yeah.
Yeah. And the video is, you know, it's good.
And I I'm good on myself, but like I need another set of eyes
who can kind of talk through stuff and debrief and yeah.
Yeah. I think I think I'm in the same spot.
I've been there for I've been at where I'm at for too long.
Obviously, if I knew what to do, I'd be where I could be, not where I am.
So yeah, it's time to consult a higher power.
So for sure.
And Miss Vicki just got some one on one with Peter and Ross and Merrick.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
I mean, it must be nice to have access to, like, the coaches, right?
Like, they said, we're coming up. Would you like to come?
I'm like, yes, yes, I do.
That's awesome. In the in the spec pinata.
She did. Yeah. That's cool. That's cool.
I assume the background is because you've learned to love that car.
Oh, I've always loved that car.
Always loved that car.
It's so sorry for asking a question.
Are you are you going to pursue any sprint racing in it?
I'd like to. I'd like to.
I just sent my last kid off.
So she's in college now.
So it kind of sort of empty nester.
Oh, now that my son swoops in to watch
and I'm I'm going to get back to Pine View
and work with Mario Corf
on a coaching episode with it.
Because what we're finding is that some of my issues are.
Are learned HPD
things I have to square away.
So I'm tweaking now, tweaking things.
I seem to remember a conversation like two years ago with all of us
about like racing versus driving and like how there's
like different channels to that.
I'm I'm I'm excited to see where you come out of it
because you're a pretty slick driver to start with.
So I think this will this will only make you
better at it.
Although I do.
I do kind of cringe looking at how pretty the car is
and thinking about regional spec me out.
Yeah, because I think you're also going to have to learn
a little bit of the bump and go to a point.
They she will not be happy.
No, I will not be happy.
But, you know, right now it's going to be the improvement car
until I get into that racing.
Sweet, sweet couple like bad habits that I picked up
not realizing I picked them up.
So I'm really excited.
She's got a couple more events this season.
And then, you know, we're up north.
We have to we have an off season as opposed to you
probably just have the good season.
Yeah, I I'm not going to do a ton.
I'm going to do that.
We have a seabring called the turkey car, the turkey trot,
which is a lot of fun Thanksgiving weekend.
So it's easy.
We're going to go down and bring the whole family and stuff.
And that will kind of be my conclusion for the year.
And then, like for me, I'm debating whether or not
I'm going to run the rager, the ragers, the majors.
The ragers, you know, because we do.
We do have like a majors and a super tour event
between Seabring and Homestead, OK?
Which is easy. It's kind of easy, especially
if you're going to make a run off run, like I.
I'm getting a lot at a regional racing right now,
so I don't feel the need to really stretch my legs and.
Yeah, I think, you know, our
our offer still stands.
If you need incompetent crew people, we are your people.
I think we'll have to get you down out of the cold at least once.
It'll be tough to twist Miss Vicki to get out of the snow.
But I think she'll she'll do it for you, Gary.
There you go.
Awesome, awesome.
And we are still now.
Now that the Beast Bay car is a little more settled, we are.
We are going back to where we all love a little bit and the
Seabring in protest of not coming back to Seabring Seabring
is running again.
Oh, nice car is is coming back.
Hopefully the series is coming back.
Yeah, hopefully.
I mean, otherwise, your closest lemons is what?
Rotary Atlanta.
It's Rotary Atlanta.
Yeah, yeah, because I think it's also not bad, which is also not bad.
Well, it's not like, oh, my God, close, but it's not terrible.
Yeah, but that that car got a little bit
de-prioritized, but now it's getting a little bit of love and attention.
So hopefully we'll how far is Barber for you?
It's not close, right?
Ten hours.
Yeah, that's not close.
Yeah, Florida is seven.
Just leaving Florida seven hours.
You want to get through as much of Alabama as fast as you can, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
So, well, we still we still got to figure out a way to get to Barber.
But it's it was at a terrible time because it's like January, February.
And, you know, we have the kids in high school and stuff.
But that's on our list.
That's one of the few East Eastish Coast tracks we haven't hit.
So.
Very cool.
You want some good news, Gary?
Sure. Guess who?
Guess who?
Guess who on this podcast is going for their instructor license this year?
Is that you?
Oh, I already have mine.
Oh.
Yeah.
Miss.
All right, I'm going to hop back in.
Are you doing the are you doing one with the club?
Are you doing like MSF?
MSF.
MSF. Yeah.
I know like NASA has their own instructor thing.
And yeah, it's a NASA MSF.
Oh, it is. OK, cool.
She's going she's going out to Great Lakes this summer.
Great. Great Lakes is a better area to to learn from.
But I'm going to try to hop in some other clubs also.
Cool. It'll be fun.
It'll be fun. But an empty nesting.
That's all I can say.
I can I can I can go solo.
Travel with my car.
Don't tell me about that.
That's right.
Explore a little bit deeper.
We kind of had to put a lot of stuff on hold, obviously.
You're you with the eight year old know the limitations.
Oh, for sure. For sure.
My teenager at the time was like, you know, I'm just I just not feeling this.
It's I don't I don't really want to go and I'm just like, and you don't have to.
So we backed off a little bit to spend.
That makes sense.
A little bit more time with her before she took off for college.
I thought that was a really valuable year that we could just spend with her.
Of course, some other things.
But now now there's free time.
Now it's just a tire budget, right?
It's a tire budget that that now that I have the the Hondas up on the lift
and I'm piecing that together over the next week and a half, two weeks,
which is just not as bad as I thought it would be.
I still have to check out the transmission.
But the rest of it is coming along better since I did hit the wall
last year. So putting it all back to a couple,
a couple of different ways you hit the wall.
Just don't want just one big one.
No, car and you.
So. So before we depart, Gary,
most important question.
For the posterity.
Will you be keeping the B-Spec car for Jack?
That's a good question.
It's not a bad way to start.
Again, I'm going to kind of I'm going to that.
So so grand grand daddy B-Spec made a comment about
IT7 cars and buying the car you want.
And then it kind of ages out.
I think that I will be trying to keep it around.
I don't think short of moving to a different B-Spec car
because that tends to be a B-Spec trend is you get bored of the one
you got and you effectively swap it.
I'm going to go try one of these.
Exactly.
And the fact that those class cars are kind of coming back,
like they were gone and now they're kind of coming back.
And we'll see whether or not it costs as much as a Porsche
to maintain a Honda in the future.
It can't. I mean, the whole car can.
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, we definitely do.
So Jack, Jack has a go cart.
Oh, nice.
It's electric.
Our much bigger non-New York Metro property.
He's got about an acre of, you know, cones we set up in flags and stuff.
Nice.
I'm all fenced in for him that he's been tearing around.
So you don't even have to cut the grass anymore.
You just change where the cones are.
No, we definitely have to cut the grass.
Oh, the grass grew fast down here.
But yeah, like I mean, for me, I'd love to like,
it's one of it's the B-spec car is definitely one that I could see myself,
like racing beyond where I should probably be racing in,
because it's just so easy to work with.
That's awesome.
Well, we were hoping that you would have fun with it.
We did not expect some of the issues that you were able to find.
But we are glad that you enjoyed it.
And we're very excited to see the performance you were able to get out of it.
And even better that you're, you know, getting to use it often is wonderful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, being able to race five times in a year is both a function of having a car
that's kind of easy to get at.
And as well as my proximity, right?
Like I have a zip code that lends itself to it.
But yeah, season is forever.
My season is forever.
Like next year, even if I don't do the majors in the Super Tour,
Sebrings in February for the first time.
We raced at Daytona four times.
We raced at Sebring four times.
Like, you know, hopefully I'll get out a little bit to another track.
But yeah, like the season kind of goes on.
Yeah.
Yeah, there is no off season where you're at.
But, uh...
Hey, it's Tanner.
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About this episode
Gary McCormick shares his journey with B Spec racing, detailing the challenges and joys of reviving and tuning a Honda Fit for competitive SCCA events. He discusses technical updates, driving techniques unique to front-wheel-drive spec cars, and the nuances of racing at tracks like Daytona and Sebring. Gary reflects on balancing family life with racing ambitions, the benefits of regional racing, and plans for coaching to improve his skills. The conversation also touches on the community aspect of B Spec racing and the accessibility and fun it offers compared to higher-powered cars.
Original notes
GHiT 0731: Gary McCormick Returns to Talk B Spec Racing
We love driving cars at the limit and Gary McCormick returns to discuss how his latest adventures in racing B Spec with the SCCA is going. Hint: its going pretty well.
Did we miss something? Please let us know at [email protected]
A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/GaryBSpec
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Best regards,
Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, Jeremy, and Bill
Hosts of the Garage Heroes in Training Podcast and Garage Heroes in Training racing team drivers
We hope you enjoy this episode!
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