The Ford Mustang GT is a fast sports car that was popular in the late 80s. The 1987 version is known for its strong engine and stylish look, making it a favorite among car enthusiasts.
Drag racing is a competition where two cars race each other in a straight line to see which one is faster. It's usually done on a short track and focuses on how quickly a car can go from a stop to top speed.
Auto crossing is a type of racing where drivers go through a course set up with cones. It's more about how well you can handle your car than how fast you can go.
The SCCA is a club in the U.S. that organizes car racing events. They help people participate in racing, whether they're just starting out or are experienced drivers.
The Chevrolet Corvette C8 is a new version of the Corvette sports car, known for its powerful engine and sleek design. It's made to perform well on the road.
IMSA GS is a racing category where cars that are based on regular production models compete against each other. It's part of a larger racing organization that hosts events for different types of cars.
The GT3 is a special version of the Porsche 911 that is built for racing and high performance. It's known for being very fast and handling well on the track.
24 Hours of LeMons is a race where people drive cheap cars for a long time, usually 24 hours. It's more about having fun and being creative with your car than winning.
The BMW 7 Series is a fancy car that is very comfortable and has a lot of cool technology. It's one of the best cars that BMW makes for people who want luxury.
The Nürburgring Nordschleife is a long and difficult racetrack in Germany where many car companies test their vehicles. It's famous for being very challenging and is loved by racing fans.
The Porsche 911 is a famous sports car that looks really cool and goes super fast. It's been around for a long time and is loved by many people who enjoy driving.
When a car is 'totaled', it means it's damaged so badly that fixing it would cost more than the car is worth. Insurance companies often decide this when they look at the damage and repair costs.
Michelin Arctic Alpine snow tires are special tires made for driving in winter conditions. They help cars grip the road better when it's snowy or icy, making driving safer.
The Porsche 917 is a famous race car known for being really fast and winning many races in the 1970s. It's considered one of the best racing cars ever made.
Mazda is a car company that makes different types of cars, including a small, fun sports car called the Miata. People like Mazdas because they are enjoyable to drive.
The Dodge Ram is a big truck that can carry heavy loads and is great for work or off-roading. The new version called the TRX is super powerful and made for tough terrain.
The Chevrolet Camaro is a powerful car that looks sporty and is built for speed. It's been around for a long time and is often compared to other fast cars like the Ford Mustang.
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From the great halls of their house, there are assembled three
who hope 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 their soon-to-be wonder woman, Vicky Fisher.
And our captain, Marvel, and head flight trainee, Jennifer
Scriptjunk.
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 one of the hosts for this episode.
It's been a long time since I said this.
Anyway, who else is hosting?
I'm Vicky.
And I'm Jeremy.
Jeremy's back.
You weren't happy a half an hour ago when I said Jeremy.
I was going to be on, but whatever.
I love what Jeremy's on.
It's OK.
It's OK.
You can fake it when Santa's in front of you.
That's fine.
That way the Christmas presents always come.
Exactly.
So Jeremy said, hey, you should have these guys on.
And I said, sure.
And then we come to the day where
we're going to have our episode.
And Jeremy's like, hey, Bill, did you make an episode?
I'm like, an episode outline?
I'm like, I don't know anything about them.
Sure, let's do it, Jeremy.
Hey, we're going to wing it.
We are.
We're good at that.
So Jeremy, these people claim to know you
in public places.
They've played with cars in various places.
And they've done generally bad decisions, which
sounds like the perfect podcast guest for us, Jeremy.
I think you've done well on this one.
And that's the reason why I feel very honored
to be able to call both of them friends.
So I've got a couple of guys that I met
doing extreme experience, instructors.
And we've been working together for years.
Had a ton of fun.
I've got my buddy, Scott Mattis, and my buddy, Mark John
Trailer.
Welcome to the pod.
Thank you.
Thanks for having us.
So Jeremy claims you as friends.
Would you guys do that, at least in a public place?
Or you know, trying to get a level of, you know.
Sure, let's go with that.
All right, all right.
That's fine.
I'll tell you, at least we couldn't believe it.
We both went to the same high school and never do each other.
Didn't know him from Adam.
And honestly, I couldn't even tell you his name.
We went to a very large high school.
And we each had our group of friends.
And didn't know.
And then one time we're visiting many years ago.
And it's like, where'd you go to high school?
Oh, I want to hear.
Well, when did you graduate?
Same year, same school.
What a small world.
Just crazy.
Well, to be fair, looking back on things,
it's probably best you didn't know them.
Because most of the time, if you look back at yourself
in high school, you wouldn't have
been friends with yourself.
So it's fine.
It worked out.
Yeah.
So let's see.
We're going to go with MJ.
Number 23 for the podcast for those bleep and score at home.
No references on that.
All right, fine.
Just a tough crowd tonight.
Anyway.
Oh, number 23.
The only one that wears that number is Michael Jordan.
There you go.
We made it.
We made it.
I knew Vicki wasn't going to help me out,
but I figured Jeremy might come in.
So it's the only 23.
Yeah.
I just want you to know that I was playing number 23
before he was playing in Wilmington.
But that's a different story, different podcast.
Anyway, so MJ, what got you started with racing and cars
and generally bad decisions that are especially
bad for your pocketbook?
Oh, jeez.
Well, so after college, I immediately
went into selling higher end cars.
We were.
That's the reason we always knew you were full of it.
Right.
Key is they're not high end, by the way.
Right.
Those companies would send us send the top salespeople
to driving schools and things like that and launches
and launch events.
And while I was there, I was like, OK, I love this.
And by the way, I had always loved cars,
but I hadn't done anything competitive before.
And come to find out, I can read corners really well
and feel a car, what it's doing very well.
And the instructors came up to me at lunch
and would say, where do you coach at?
Where do you drive at?
And I said, I'm just here for the event.
And they go, well, your time is close to our top guy
as you can get.
So keep doing it.
Well, then I decided, OK, I'm going to try to do this.
So then I bought a track car and started doing events
and then signed up for more and more instruction
and more schools.
And then all of a sudden, I'm instructing and doing things.
And then I started doing the one lap of America.
And now anytime somebody says, do you
want to do a track day, I'm there.
Like, let's go.
One lap, the elusive mistress of mine that has never happened.
But that's fine.
And that would be the problem.
So it's working on it.
Let's work on it.
We're going to talk about one lap later.
We will, I'm sure.
I have questions.
We don't have answers, but we have questions.
So Scott, what brought you to this fine fairing sport
that we call and love cars?
Yeah, I took a kind of a long path.
I guess started in high school really.
My brother bought a brand spanking new 87 Mustang GT.
We used to work together.
And we would have impromptu contests of speed
on the way to and from work sometimes,
where he would show the speed of the car, I guess.
And then I got my own Mustang in high school
and started doing drag racing with it on the street,
drag racing with it.
And then started getting an organized drag racing.
Some of the guys I hang out with did some auto crossing
with the local SCCA.
So I got into auto crossing that same car
and kept building it up.
More power, more suspension, didn't do anything about brakes
because it wasn't smart enough back then.
And started doing all that kind of stuff with it.
Then I took a left turn and kept doing drag racing,
made it pretty fast drag racing.
And then I took time off to raise a family.
And then my brother's Mustang that he bought brand new
became available back in like 2000, I think it's 17 or so.
And I bought that off of him
and kind of picked up where he left off
and started doing auto crossing
and did a couple of schools and some track days.
And then the opportunity came up to do one lap
and I'd never done that, something I read about.
And so that kind of really got me in with both feet
into getting back on the road courses.
And so I did a bunch of track days from that point on,
started instructing that same year.
This is in 21, started instructing
and then have kind of ramped it up since then.
I've got a couple cars now and get on the track
as much as I can, still out across a little bit.
Haven't drag raced for a long time, but.
Yeah, once you make a turn,
once you turn left or right,
usually drag racing becomes kind of.
Yeah, I don't wanna do that anymore.
Bad, bad things happen.
So one of my cars has a ridiculous amount of power.
So it's basically a drag racer
that's set up to go on road courses, but yeah.
Much more fun.
Yes, well, we agree with it.
Turning left is fun, turning left and right is more fun.
Anyway.
Yeah.
It's much simpler that way.
So do you guys, you guys have been doing this
a little bit and with the instruction
of extreme and everything,
are there any tracks or series or cars left
on the bucket list that you guys need to cross off?
Always.
That's what we love to hear.
That's why you're on the podcast.
Yeah, 100%.
You know what's funny about extreme experience is,
you know, and if somebody says this
for anything else, they're a liar.
But I think that, you know,
originally you do it because you think or know
or you are a good instructor and you want to do that,
but you also join because of the cars that they have.
And the first time that you're there
and, you know, you get to drive,
you know, for me, I've been with them.
I think this is my fourth year.
So for me, it's been Ferrari 488 GTB,
which is a great car, but now it is an old car.
And Lamborghini Huracan, which is a great car,
but is an old car now.
The new Corvette CH06, which I am absolutely in love with.
Like it's just epic.
Nissan GTR, which is a good car only in the right mode,
correct Jeremy and Scott?
When you know how to drive it,
it's a good car in all modes.
Well, I get really bored unless it's in the right modes,
but I respect that.
Anyway, you join originally for the cars.
And, you know, what I love extreme experience
to have 10 other cars, you know,
that are all a million dollars, sure,
but it's their business.
They, you know, pick the cars that sell
and, you know, every couple of year or two,
we're adding a new car or two to the fleet, different models.
But yeah, I mean, I would love to drive a Bugatti Chiron,
you know, but that's not going to be at that.
And I certainly don't know anybody that has one.
I would love to drive a Ford GT.
That'd be a blessed car of mine, but...
The original ones or the...
No, the one that just ended production.
Oh, the brand new ones.
The newer ones, yeah.
Okay, so third, third gen.
Gen three, right?
Okay, yeah.
But anyway, but yeah, I mean, there always are,
but anyway, you join, you know,
you join extreme for the cars.
And then it just takes no time to,
and I've not been in the military or a fireman,
but I'm assuming it's similar to that
where you're sharing this experience that is fun,
but it is dangerous.
And there isn't anything that I wouldn't do
for any of the instructors at any time
at extreme experience,
because what we do is it's fricking crazy, honestly.
I mean, here, jump in.
I know you took a 25 minute class.
Here's a $300,000 car.
We're going to let you go as fast as you want.
And I'm in the right seat, and I don't have a brake pedal.
I don't have a steering wheel.
I can reach over and grab the wheel a little bit.
But what we do is, can I swear on the podcast?
If you want me to edit it, I can, yeah.
It's fricking crazy.
So, you know, so that's, I don't know.
Yes, there's tons of other cars I'd love to drive,
but you know, it is what it is.
All right, so Scott, we're going to ask you,
I just have a follow-up question.
One, so get your cars ready.
458 versus 488.
What do you think?
I have never driven, yeah, I've never driven the 458.
It sounds better.
I know that.
It does sound better.
Yeah, beyond that, I honestly,
I can't give an opinion
because I have not driven the 458.
What about you, MJ?
You said 488 was on there.
Did you do 458?
When I started with Extreme Experience,
the 488 had taken, was replaced, yeah.
The 488 replaced the 458.
So, I believe that Jeremy has probably driven the 458.
Jeremy, what do we need?
Which one do we need?
So, I have not, when I came into Extreme Experience,
they literally just got rid of that
and we were eliminating all of the McLarens
at the same time as well.
So, the 488 GTBs were new that year.
So, I haven't driven a 458, but they do sound,
a lot of people love the sound of that,
that naturally aspirated motor.
It is a lot louder than the twin turbo.
But, not as fast, but.
I'm told that they drive very similar
in terms of how they are on the racetrack,
but obviously it's that sound.
Ms. Vicki, you had a question?
I just wanna say, just for the bravery of you guys,
you guys have to be a special kind of crazy
to do what you're doing.
I don't know that I used to work crazy.
I would use something different, but.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys are,
that is quite something.
Just people that don't, like you said,
I'm gonna give you a half hour class,
we're gonna put you behind this car.
That's a lot of power, that's a lot of power.
It is, you know, extreme experience, honestly,
is, it's not an ad for them,
but they are, they try to do,
and I feel get as close as they can
to doing a 10 out of 10 job.
Oh, I hear wonderful things out of them.
With each and every client and the safety protocols
the way that they treat us, the instructors,
and really all the employees, it's just, it's special.
But yeah, I mean, it really is crazy
that they're able to do that.
Yeah, you guys are extremely brave.
That's all I could say.
We have to, one thing, if we get somebody in the car,
and that guy gets in the car,
I mean, he immediately says,
we're gonna rip the shit out of this thing,
we are really gonna go, that is my job,
right then and there, to, in a professional, nice way,
go, hey, calm down and then have a conversation.
Yes. My buddy's behind me.
Okay, well, that's not good,
because we're not going out racing.
Set some expectations.
Yeah, we're gonna have fun,
but I need you to listen to me
and watch my hand signals and my voice
and remember what you learned in class,
and we're gonna keep this on the road.
I mean, we literally had Scott has had, Jeremy has had,
people get in the car and say, I bought the insurance,
I'm gonna do whatever the FI want.
And that's not gonna happen with me and the instructor.
No, no.
I'm gonna try to act right, protect them,
myself and the asset of my company.
And so if I need to call that drive off
and have somebody else get in or get a talk,
we need to do that.
So, okay, can I just take a little deep dive
on this aspect before we move on?
The type of personalities that you are working with.
All right, do you take personal training
in diffusing certain personalities
and encouraging others?
Do you take a little course in that
or do you just have a certain way of speaking with people
in general?
You wanna answer that, Scott?
Yeah, I mean, I think one that MJ and I both are,
I think people, people, you kind of have to be.
We've both been in sales our entire life.
So you have to kind of be able to read people.
And just like if you're trying to pitch a sale to somebody,
it's kind of the same thing.
You're pitching why we need to do this together,
what we need to do to come out of this thing alive.
And yeah, so you kind of have to tailor it to like,
hey, if someone's really, really motivated,
you have to kind of tailor it to,
yeah, we can go out, we can go as fast as you want
as long as you do this, this, this, and this.
And then at the first sign of trouble,
you can kind of play off that and say,
hey, remember what I told you, we cannot do that.
We cannot, you know, trying to get it,
they'll try and get the car sideways.
And it makes it sound like everybody's doing this.
It's not, it's pretty rare you get some.
90% of the time, it's like,
hey, we can go faster if you want to.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're in a car that they're on the hook for
if they ball this thing up.
So they're very respectful most of the time.
And pretty, and it goes the same way.
Part of our training is, you know,
everybody's doing the MSF level two now.
I think the entire instructor core is,
for the most part, MSF level two certified.
And part of what we do with that,
it's not just controlling the maniac.
It's also tailoring it to that person
that's deathly afraid.
It's like, okay, you're a little offline.
You're going so slow.
It's not going to hurt anything.
Roll with it, you know, it's about them having fun.
As long as they're safe, you know, just, you know,
you roll with it.
And so yeah, you kind of tailor to each driver
and you got to figure out pretty quick
what kind of driver they are and that changes.
Hey, we got one lap in.
Wow, this is way easier.
I thought it was going to be now all bets are off
and it's, you know, I've had people
that were the most respectful and in control
and, you know, nothing that was even remotely scary.
And then on lap three, they got a little too comfortable
and now they're going to go out and hit as hard as they can.
It's not something that they had a plan to do
by any stretch, at least most of them,
but it's just like they've gotten that level of comfort
and they feel they can do that
and they don't understand what these cars can do
if you drive them like that.
Right, now I have another one.
So when you guys are driving within the course itself,
do you teach them quickly, briefly,
what it's like to drive on a track?
Like there is certain point of a line
and how to engage the car on the track itself
or do you just kind of just give them kind of the gist
and say, go ahead and just kind of drive it
and have a good time?
You know, we have, beyond what most tracks would have
for like an HPD day or whatever with coning,
we have our own cones that we use,
you know, and every cone is for something different.
We explain that to them, they learn that in the class.
And so it's very much the way we cone tracks
for the most part is how you're going to drive it
if you were out there, you know,
not necessarily racing, but doing a track day
or a time trial or something.
It's pretty close to what you'd have.
Our braking zones out of necessity are backed up,
you know, quite a bit because not everybody knows
how hard you need to break when you're at that point
where we got to break now, you know,
and if they miss it by a little bit.
So there's some safety built into it,
but for the most part, if they're driving
the way we have a cone and we're telling them to,
it's the way you would drive it, you know,
for a track day, a time trial day.
We have all the cones.
We have lift cones, brake cones, turn in cones,
Apex cones, all of it, track out cones, literally everything.
It's not a, hey, we're going to go out there
and just hear you try to, you know,
we're just going to tell you
and you're going to figure it out just by looking.
Now we follow the cones, right?
Everything has a purpose on the racetrack
and that is for safety.
You know, like Scott just said,
we do back our brake cones up a little bit
just because most people at 140 miles an hour,
they push on the brake pedal
like they do at 35 miles an hour on the road, right?
So, you know, you have to have a little bit of safety built in
because, you know, 99.9% of these people
that are doing this have one,
never driven a car with that kind of power,
two, never, ever, ever been on a racetrack
or anywhere near a racetrack.
So like you have to, it has to be a safe program.
So do you guys have to drive around the purposes
that are on the race course
or are they part of the cones?
Sorry.
Anyway.
All right, so we didn't, we didn't stop.
No, it's M.J. got to say what his dream car to drive was.
I know that's where we're going.
I'm looking for Vicki before Vicki starts.
I'm sorry, I'm genuinely interested in that.
So go ahead.
Look at the dock.
It's the next thing we're talking about.
I didn't know we had one.
So we're going, dream cars, dream tracks, what?
Yes, M.J. got the dream car
and then he didn't get any further.
So as far as tracks, I mean, I've gotten to drive VIR
which is currently my favorite track, not with Xtreme,
but in general, I've gotten to drive Road Atlanta,
Barber, all phenomenal tracks,
get to do Brainerd with Xtreme this year, hopefully.
And then get to do Road America this year,
which I have not done before.
That's going to be a beast in the cars you guys have.
What's that?
That's going to be a beast in the cars you guys have.
Road America.
Yeah, yeah, hopefully.
As far as cars, I mean, yeah, Ford GT would be great.
The GTD would be great.
The ZR1 would be great.
Honestly, I've got a friend who growing up,
I used to buy parts from him
and he raced World Challenge,
SCCA World Challenge starting back in the early 90s,
and he's got a 2000 Selene that was,
it's basically a tube frame car with a NASCAR engine
that he raced in Speed Vision
back when the World Challenge changed the Speed Vision.
Yeah, in the late 90s, early 2000s,
and he actually gave or sold the car
to a mutual friend of ours, a guy that he knew really well
that was on his race team and stuff.
And long story short, the car has license plates on it now
and it is a monster.
It just sounds wicked, it looks cool,
and I just, that's the car I would love to get in
and drive around the track or really anywhere
because it's just a cool ride.
That sounds like a fun time, so.
Oh yeah.
So, Miss Vicki, your favorite question.
Race philosophies?
There you go.
All right, so do you guys basically,
when you get on a racetrack, when you do race?
We're instructing, you know.
We're instructing.
Do you have like a little mantra
that you kind of go by that you share,
your best advice that you share
and pass on to your clients
or people that you instruct in general?
Oh yes, so when somebody gets in the car,
we've all got, it's kind of similar information,
but we've all got our little blurb
when somebody gets into the car.
The things that we need to talk about before we go out.
And in these cars, we've got in car audio
and video and exterior audio and video.
And when those videos get pulled occasionally
by our managers, they wanna make sure
that you've covered these things.
So when somebody gets in the car,
you do a quick greet, hey, I'm MJ, welcome.
What brought you out today?
Great, that sounds awesome.
Let me just go over a couple of quick things for you.
Let me look on your wrist.
You've got your wristband and I can see it stamped
so you did attend the class.
And then start talking about the cones
and what we're gonna do, show them your hand signals again,
talk about being very smooth on the gas,
very smooth and firm on the brakes.
Again, everybody's got their own little blurb
and it might change just a little bit based on the track.
Some of our tracks have very fast straightaways.
So I always point over to the straightaway
and say, look, when I call for a break over there,
I want an eight or a nine out of 10
and I want you to hold that pressure down
at an eight or a nine until I tell you to start releasing
that you'll be able to feel,
but I need you to really push it
because we're gonna be, you know,
like we coach at a track down in North Carolina.
It's North Carolina Center for Automotive Research Track.
And that track is when we're doing our morning warm ups,
we're 160, you know, in the quick cars.
And when you've got somebody that's never been in a car
with 600 plus horsepower and then some, you know,
they need to be pushing the brake.
NC car.
So Scott, I would personally add to that list.
Please don't try to,
and please don't try to impress your instructor.
Scott, do you have anything else that you'd add to this?
Yeah, I mean, as far as me personally,
when I go out on the track, you know,
I'm not anyway that takes it serious.
I've never actually done a door-to-door racing.
I'm still 2026.
I was gonna say, that's gonna happen this year.
Really?
Oh boy.
But when I do go out on the track, you know,
my thing, I have never, I've gone pretty fast.
I've never gone off track
barring one mechanical kind of a failure.
I've never spun out a car on track.
I've come close.
I, you know, I'm out driving a car that I can't afford to,
you know, I'm not gonna ball it up.
You know, I'm not gonna push it.
I'm not gonna put myself or somebody else in jeopardy.
So, you know, I like to go out and go really,
really fast, but at the end of the day,
I want that car to go home in one piece
and, you know, I'm gonna drive within my limits, you know?
And I do that, whether I'm autocrossing
or on a track or whatever, it's like, you know,
I'm gonna go out and drive fast,
but I'm not gonna go beyond my limits.
You know, I keep it pretty in control,
which is not the norm with a lot of people
unfortunately.
Yeah, true.
And Vicki, I don't know if you know this,
but, you know, part of our program too
isn't just instructing.
People can buy, you know, having us drive.
Oh, right, Longs.
I was a one out of five times we go on track, we're driving.
And so, you know, do I have a 12 year old
for their birthday, you know, in their dream car?
And I can go as fast as I want and they don't care
or did somebody buy this for their wife
or their mom who's 75 years old
and she doesn't wanna go so quick or whatever
and we tailor those drives to them.
Okay.
And that's always, I mean, that's always a real pleasure.
My most fun event or most fun drive last year,
I had a lady for her 85th birthday
that always wanted to be in a 488 and she drove
and that was in Chicago this year
and that was an absolute blast.
We just giggled the whole time around.
We probably never went over 70, you know.
And yes, he hit on her.
Yeah.
I watched that video.
I can for sure tell you that is the truth.
We're not comfortable.
It was uncomfortable.
But I couldn't help myself.
Always good for happy birthday gift.
Anyway, so do you guys wanna, we're kind of in extreme.
Do you guys wanna do extreme right now?
Or we could go in the one lap.
What are you guys thinking?
I got some other questions.
Oh, Jeremy's gonna contribute.
Go Jeremy, go.
Yeah.
So in terms of your driving,
what you've done up to today, right?
What are your goals for the future?
Right, I know Scott, you said you haven't done
any door to door, you know, wheel to wheel.
You know, MJ, I believe the same thing.
But like, do you guys have any goals
that you have in your driving slash instructing
that you would like to meet this year, next year,
whatever it may be?
Go ahead, Scott.
You know, I honestly haven't thought about it.
You know, I would like to do some door to door stuff,
not seriously.
I mean, yeah, in a dream world,
I would love to go out and race IMSA GS
in a Mustang, you know, or race a GT3 car.
But the chance of that happening are not very likely.
So more in the reality-based things.
I mean, I want to keep doing what I'm doing.
I want to have the health and the ability to, you know,
go out and get on a track, you know,
every month that I can, every time that I can,
you know, like for one lap stuff,
I want to do better, improve myself every year with that.
Yeah, that's really about it,
is really just to get on as many cars
and as many tracks as I can.
I've already talked to the wife that I want to keep instructing
until I can't do it anymore, you know,
that's going to be hopefully a semi-retirement plan.
So, okay.
Fun, what a great retirement plan.
Yeah, I would say, you know, I hope that my health can,
you know, I'm relatively healthy right now
and hope that my health will allow me to keep doing as,
you know, people say, hey, you want it like,
like you and I this year,
I'm really looking forward to doing an event with you
this year, you and Scott and some other guys
and doing a little bit of door-to-door,
which I haven't done before.
And then, you know, my best fit,
well, we'll talk more about one lap later,
but I'd always like to try to improve with one lap.
I know that I'm never going to win
against people that, yes, I'm a pro driver,
but not a pro driver, right?
There's a zillion real race car drivers
that that's what they do for a living
and they compete in one lap.
I'm not going to beat them when they show up
with a factory prepared race car, you know, for the street.
That's, I'm not going to beat them,
but I'd always, you know,
I'm always trying to beat my best finish there.
Okay.
That's pretty awesome.
So you guys really do make bad decisions
if you're going to be racing with Jeremy this year.
I mean, really, come on guys, do better.
It'll be fun, I know that.
It's going to be so much fun.
It's going to be a great time.
So just so you both know, 99% of the time, it's all of us.
So, Bill and Vicki.
We'll be there.
You know, this is what we do.
This is us.
This is...
Yeah, it's like, it's like a bunch,
I think we have, what, three cars
that we all kind of hang out together with.
Yep.
Like three teams.
Yep.
So we're all together,
just kind of helping each other out.
Love it.
So basically, our race weekends with 24 hours of lemons
are basically like the days that we get off of work
with extreme and then we go hang out.
That's what the race weekend is,
the whole entire weekend.
The whole freaking weekend.
It's just so much fun.
I always like to, like I always say,
I like to attribute it to like lemons
as like playing football on Sunday
with your friends before the game starts.
You're just out there having a good time.
I'm looking forward to it.
Lots of laughing, lots of laughing.
Yeah.
Now it should be awesome.
I can't wait to experience it.
So where are you going to go?
Do we have a, do we have it set yet?
Where do you guys,
where are you guys originally on roughly?
We're both in Des Moines, Iowa basically.
Okay.
Sounds like Jim.
So Jeremy sent us a list of potentials
and VIR was on there.
And I was like, oh, I'd really love to do VIR.
And he's like, just to be clear,
that's, we're using the black car on that.
And that's, we're going to be really competitive in
kind of like, you're not good enough
to be in the black car or watch out in the white car.
No, I did not say that.
I mean, it's a real three series BMW.
I mean, you know, compared to what you guys drive,
you know, at the extreme, I mean, you know,
I mean, let's be real.
Well, I do have to say that probably the craziest race
in our circuit is probably New Jersey.
Oh, yeah.
I would say.
Jersey is a great time.
Jersey is a great time.
Jersey is a great time.
Great facility, great track, great everything.
But yeah, we haven't, we haven't hammered down
what track we're going to go to.
Itzberg would have been really easy, you know,
minus the fact that it's not there.
I still, I'm still crying inside.
I've got my, all my schedule of all those
that I need to compare to all my other.
Did you see that?
That's the list I sent in, Bill.
I know the list.
You sent it to me two or three times saying,
hey, did you get this?
I'm like, yes, I got this Jeremy.
So yeah, I need to pin down that
versus my extreme schedule
versus my other track stuff schedule work.
I don't really take into account,
I take off work whenever I want.
Yeah, but wheel the wheel with this crew right here.
You're going to love it.
I don't know, I'm looking forward to it.
It'll be a mess.
You'll be full that weekend.
Unless it feels like it'll be a mess.
No, it'll be great.
Yeah.
I didn't say it was a bad mess.
I just said it's going to be a mess no matter what you do.
If you're racing the number of cars that we race,
that the races that we do, something's going to happen.
It'll be great.
Eventually, yep.
No, it is pretty great, I do have to say.
I just want to, I feel like it's a public service
that we do, we do the podcast.
I just want to make sure that you guys know,
Jeremy at these races tends to not wear a lot of clothes
and snuggle a lot.
I just want you to know what you're into.
So, hold on, Bill, just so you know,
Matt has a no pants policy in his truck,
so he's totally aware.
Oh, you'll totally fit in.
We're always having a hard time keeping pants on you.
100%.
Jeremy's always dropping trowel all the time.
He's always run around in his jockey somewhere or another.
We're wearing Vicki's sister,
Jennifer's clothes the entire weekend.
Oh, boy, yeah.
Like four times too small.
Jeremy squeeze himself into the mirror.
It's kind of like the Grenches heart, but only scarier.
This Jeremy is just like,
just because it's a bad idea
doesn't mean it's not going to be fun.
Right, exactly.
For the record, I do not want photos, so.
Oh, that's so much fun.
We don't do photos.
We do videos.
So much fun.
Yeah, that's one of those things.
It's okay, don't worry.
You'll make the lemons video
and your political career will be over.
Although right now,
maybe your political career will be heightened by this thing.
But who knows?
Yeah, at least respectfully, when Jeremy does it,
they do look like biker shorts.
So we're good.
All right, fair enough.
As long as they're Jeremy's size,
I won't be so upset.
It's when they're not.
That's the problem.
And so far, they've never been.
And all too often, they're not the right size.
Yeah, that's when we did the what was it?
The dodgeball theme.
We kept having the entire paddock break out
in a dodgeball fight everywhere periodically
through the weekend.
Like the entire like race paddock was breaking out
in a massive dodgeball fight.
It was amazing.
It was.
Yep, it's a...
We'll go with it.
It'll be memorable.
For sure.
All right.
Could be trauma.
I do have a question.
Trauma could be happy joy, mostly trauma.
It could be a lot of trauma.
I do have a question though,
because this is one of my favorite questions.
Because to date, nobody has picked
or they have forgotten about my choice.
So if you had the opportunity,
both of you, to go to any track in the world
and drive with any car that you wanted to go with,
what track would it be?
I'm going to...
Spa in an F1 car.
Wow.
That's gonna be a bumpy ride.
That was quick.
That was quick.
That's gonna be a bumpy ride.
I was gonna give you one of my hosting duties,
which is to...
Oh, sorry.
To give you time to allow you to contemplate,
but apparently you didn't need to.
I was gonna say something along the lines
of it's a good thing we have a dock
because we're not going in any order of the dock,
but that's...
We are not.
Yeah.
MJ, what are you thinking?
Is now...
No, is it official, an official track?
What's...
I mean, I'm thinking...
It's your ball.
In Germany, the Nord...
Nord...
Nord Schleifer.
Nord Schleif.
Yep.
Yeah.
I just, I would love to drive on that.
And right now, I'm just...
And I get it, there's faster, there's this,
there's that.
I think the current Z06 is just epic.
The sounds of that car and I love it.
And I get it that there's ZR1 I could pick from,
or ZR1X, I like the two-wheel drive, no turbos.
Normally, I've rated the sound of that car.
That's what I'd like.
The Chevy 458, yes, yes.
It's pretty spectacular.
I do like that the GM engineer
that I talked to who worked on that program,
he says, Ferrari was making this engine
and stopped, why?
Why would you stop?
Yeah.
Because they moved on.
So because you guys haven't listened to the podcast
and I said my favorite track...
They don't have to listen, they just have to download.
They don't have to listen, just download.
So my favorite dream track is...
I know.
Mount Panorama.
In what, Jeremy?
So I had to finish your story.
I mean, in anything, to be honest with you,
but I would love to run it in a GT3 car.
A Porsche AMG or a BMW M4.
So if any of our Australian listeners have a GT3 car
that they want to have Santa Claus
drive around Mount Panorama, you know?
I mean, I would do it in a seat, I don't care.
We know Santa Claus, we can have him there.
He won't mind going and, you know,
he's working on a divorce anyway,
so what's the big deal?
You need to...
I think down there, he's Father Christmas,
not Santa Claus, he's Father Christmas.
That's what they call me Father Christmas.
Yes, yes, yes.
Just don't call you late for dinner.
I got it, all right.
All right, so you both have done one lap of America.
I've signed up for it, I think, five times?
Four times at least.
And the Pennsylvania inspection of the car,
the car wasn't ready, a plague,
all kinds of excuses I have, and you have to pull it out,
but I will eventually do this.
I'm waiting for my beautiful bride.
I've given up on trying to do it without her,
so I'm figuring, you know, it's just written on the wall
that I have to do it with her, so it's coming.
So what's your guys' experience with one lap?
We'll go with Scott first,
because MJ seems to go first all the time.
Yeah, he does.
Yeah, he's quick.
Yeah, yeah, just, well, never mind.
That's a different part, guys.
That's the garage.
Yes, there is.
Only fans, but guys, we'll talk about that later,
the credits and who knows what he's gonna say on there,
but...
100%.
So I actually got into it kind of through MJ
in a roundabout way.
We've got a mutual friend who, out of the blue,
well, let's back up a little bit.
I knew what one lap was,
from the old car and driver days, forever,
on the cannonball before that.
I was familiar with it.
One of those things I never even remotely thought
it's something that I could, would, or should go do.
But out of the blue in 21,
I got a call from our mutual friend, Mark,
and he's like,
hey, got a friend that is signed up for one lap,
has a really killer car, needs a co-driver.
I know you do this stuff.
Would you be interested in doing it?
And I'm obviously completely taken aback out of left field.
My initial answer is, well, heck yeah, I wanna do that.
Gotta talk it over with the wife and kind of explain it.
She's not at all a car person,
but I explained it to her what it was.
And she's like, well, it's kind of a
once in a lifetime thing.
We'll circle back on that later.
Once in a lifetime same thing.
Yeah, you should go do it.
So ended up going and doing it with him,
jumped in a car with somebody
that I had met like two weeks before
we kind of all got together for a dinner
just to kind of introduce,
but went and traveled 5,000 miles with him
and did all the tracks and such.
And it's one of those things
that was a one and done deal until it wasn't.
It's at the end of it, it was, I'm doing that again.
And so I've done it last year
as my fifth year in a row doing it,
sometimes in my own car, sometimes in other people's cars.
But it's an addictive thing, that's for sure.
What about you, MJ?
Did you want one and done
or are you graduated from being a one lap puppy many times?
Yep, I'm a lap dog now we call it.
Dog.
Yep, like we call the newbies lap puppies in a nice way.
But I used to read car and driver magazine
from cover to cover.
I had sold cars for a long time
and I always prided myself on knowing
kind of everything on every car.
That was back when they had photos, he can't read.
Right, right.
And I kept seeing the one lap of American
and finally, and I think it was, oh,
I need to look, I've got all my books behind me.
From the one lap, but it was 080907, something like that.
I did it.
I was like, I'm going to do this.
And boy, you, it's the first time you do it.
It's maybe a little bit of what you expect
and a whole bunch of what you don't.
And you do it one time
and if you don't want to do it again,
there's something wrong with you.
You know, it's like, I give my credit to my first co-driver.
He said it's a once in a lifetime event
that you get to do every year.
And it's again, you're sharing this crazy experience with,
it's usually about 85 to 90 teams from around the world.
And it's just like I said, a bunch of pro drivers
and factory backed drivers and test engineers
for tire companies that are pro drivers
and your racing against all these people.
And then there's just people like me
who've done lots of track stuff
and people that have done just a little bit
and here they are on the other.
And you want everybody to do well.
I told Scott every year, I want you to do great.
I just want you to be one spot behind me,
you know, whatever that is.
He's got a Ford.
He usually is.
Yep.
No, we should go check those stats from last year,
shouldn't we?
But yeah, it's, so this will be, I believe,
my 13th one lap in 26.
And boy, when I think back about how much money each one lap costs
and everything, I'm like, wow, I could have bought another house.
That's all that.
You could have had that AMG GT3 car for me to drive.
Yeah, but it definitely is worth it every year.
And I get it.
There's some people that are like, well, it's not a lot of track stuff.
Well, it's more than track stuff.
Yes, it's three hot laps in the morning,
three hot laps in the afternoon,
and see you tomorrow in South Carolina.
And three hot laps in the morning and three hot laps,
see you tomorrow in New Jersey.
And it's just every year a different route.
And heck, in my opinion,
the transit is more dangerous than the track stuff.
Just getting there, because drivers are so goddamn
terrible on the city, on the nation's roads.
Or there's a tornado or there's a storm or a deer or.
Yep, we've had all that and snow.
Oh, yep, you name it.
People jump alligators every year, it seems like.
And it luck out and jump them.
And Scott will share that story.
And sometimes it rips the whole underside of the car out
and you're done.
And some years we have many cars totaled in the event.
Some cars, sometimes one.
But it is definitely a special event and something
I hope continues for a very long time.
I hope I'm able to do it for a very long time.
We had a friend that did it almost until, I think he was 80.
And then he decided I'm done.
It's been a good ride.
Yeah, everybody goes there, always has some great time.
And it's spectacular.
Doesn't seem to be a one and done kind of thing for anybody.
So, indeed.
So if you guys were to look upon your one-lap history,
do you have a couple stories or something that sticks out from the events?
Your best one-lap story.
Oh boy.
The pressure.
Check one, your best one.
We'll talk about the rest later on, but your best one.
It can be that time that you made your co-driver wear no pants.
I mean, that's totally fine.
That's every night.
Gosh, that's not the sticks you have, Scott.
Anyway, that's when MJ and Scott are doing it together.
Everything is with the right mentality.
Gosh.
Scott, well, you think about it and I'll share one.
You can.
Yeah, please.
So over the 13 years, there are eight trillion stories.
So finding a best one is hard,
but here's one that people have a hard time believing.
We were in somewhere in Florida.
We had done, it was a day that we did two track events.
And then we had a third event at,
wherever they drag race at the Gator Nationals,
it's that drag strip.
We were headed to that drag strip.
And it was a pretty good transit.
So I mean, we were done at 2.30 in the afternoon.
And we probably had an hour and a half drive to this drag strip.
And while we're going, I'm a passenger, my co-driver is driving.
And just out of the blue, I see coming at us in the other lane.
And this is a normal two lane and two lane highway,
you know, meaning two lanes going one way and two the other way.
I look over in this, just like every Cutlass Sierra in the world was Maroon.
A Maroon Cutlass Sierra go off the road to the right.
So they're coming at us and to the right goes down to the ditch.
As he comes up, there's trees after the ditch.
The car rides up the tree straight up,
literally almost stops,
where it's going to just be balancing on its rear bumper.
And as it starts rolling towards the driver's door,
the car literally tucks and rolls so that it's hitting the down slope now,
and it lands back on its tires, and the goddamn thing drives out.
Cut it out.
This young gentleman gets out of the car.
There's a huge branch stuck in the one of the tires.
Like between the fender and the tire.
He's working on trying to break that out.
He can't get it out.
He gets back in the car, throws it and drives, and the thing shatters, and he drives away.
During this time, my buddy had already called 911.
They're on speaker through the Bluetooth.
And she goes, yep, yep, it's another drug runner.
They're like, because we're like, they're going, they're moving again.
And she goes, yeah, it's for sure a drug runner.
Wow.
And yeah, it was welcome to Florida.
Yeah, it was that was an interesting one, but lots of good stories.
But that's that was a weird one.
Jeremy don't insult our listeners.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry.
No, he nailed it.
That was me in the other car.
My neck still hurts from that.
So yeah, is Kenya still our top listening country?
International.
It's not that they're the top listening country.
It's that they rank us very highly in the automotive podcast that they listen to.
We are rock stars in Kenya for some reason.
We didn't know it.
Okay.
So I still have to be careful about Florida.
All right.
Okay, got it.
Yeah, got it.
Yeah.
All right, Scott, have we babbled long enough for you to come up with your story?
So a couple, and it's kind of that it really shows the spirit of things.
If, as MJ mentioned, people have offs, they hit tires.
Anything can happen from a little fender bender to a total at our very first track this year,
which was Gateway, worldwide tech for the newer folks, but down in St. Louis and
some good friends of ours that they actually started the same year I did in 21.
And we've toured, you know, transited with them, spent time with them,
eat dinner with them every chance we get.
A couple of older retired pharmacists, and they split dry.
We had a drug story, Scott, I'm sorry.
These guys are a little more legit.
Whatever.
Potato, potato.
These guys, it's a great, honestly, it's a great story because they,
friends since college, you know, both became pharmacists and they've shared driving duties.
You know, sometimes I think there's a couple where they might have not split the car,
but basically they split the car at every event.
And at the first event this year, the first session,
one of them, John, on his session actually put their Tamaro into the tire wall.
Coming down off the banking from the straightaway.
And that's kind of where the spirit of one lap kicks in, because it's on a flatbed,
they're waiting for the track to go cold so they can bring it in, they bring it in,
and they don't even have it off the flatbed yet.
And everybody's coming in to knock Gawk and oh, what happened?
It's what do we need to do to get him back on the track?
And 100%, it was just so cool to see that.
And so they got it all together, they ended up, they needed to,
I think they had to Uber some parts or whatever for the, it was a front-end hit to get some
suspension back in line and kind of get the door and everything pulled out.
And, you know, here it is, the very first session of this was a 10-day event,
and they were out, they were done until everybody jumped in, got him going again,
and they actually made it to where Wendell, their second co-driver,
was able to make his session.
And tragically, that ended up being his last one lap, he passed away shortly after that.
So it just made that become that much bigger of a deal.
You know, it made it to where we all got to spend time together and finish the event
because of the team spirit of the event where they got to, you know, keep going.
Well, if you like that.
And remember this hit, this wasn't small, this was passenger door doesn't open,
front passenger fender is basically tore back, the tires folded under the car.
This was a repair that took place over three hours of teams driving to get parts,
other parts being ubered in.
And as we're waiting for those parts, teams coming in going,
okay, we're going to need to remove this, go and take this off, do this,
pound this out, change this, I need a welder, I need this.
And put this car back together and you'd be like, what are you talking about?
It's totaled.
And nope, it's just amazing, everybody's just amazing.
Well, if you like that as a story, you're going to love when you come to Lemons.
That's seriously, that's pretty much Lemons.
You know, every weekend.
Anybody has issues, it's like, hey, what can we do to help?
Kind of the same, kind of the same thing.
It's like football, you know, everybody wants to see you succeed.
Or at least play.
All right, gentlemen, we've come to something we haven't done in a little bit of time.
And you guys being avid listeners and often downloading every single podcast that we have
in our history, almost 800 podcast episodes.
Obviously, you know, that means the Fast and Furious Storytime Questions,
where we badger you with a list of questions.
We will not get through them all tonight because we have close to 70 now.
But I think we should just let's go with five, five for each host.
And you guys get to answer them.
So we'll start with the lady of the podcast, Jeremy.
Santa.
Oh, I'm going to go with an easy one.
Easy one.
All right, Santa.
So front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, or all wheel drive?
Or does it matter?
Or does it matter?
I'll take that.
If it's dry, always rear wheel drive.
Okay.
What about you, MJ?
What are you thinking?
Are we talking racing?
Are we talking daily driver?
What are we talking?
We've gone over this.
This is your podcast.
Sorry.
Your preference.
I'm a rear wheel drive guy 24-7.
I'm, I, my daily drove until about two months ago as ZL1 in the winter with
Michelin Arctic alpine snow tires on it.
And it was badass.
I would say no less.
Miss Vicki.
Yeah.
What was your first car and what was the worst car you ever had?
Oh boy.
Sounds like Scott should go first on this one.
So my first car, I only had for a few months.
I'm not going to say what it was.
That's not, that's not, that's not, that's not, that's not what it was.
Yeah, that's bullshit.
It was a Ford Pinto.
Listen, put your pants on.
That was my car.
It rhymes with Romero.
You see, he doesn't want to admit it because he's a Ford guy.
Six, eight or worse yet, four cylinders.
It was the little six cylinder, like a 2.8.
2.8, yes.
I know that, I know that car.
Yes.
What year?
I had that and it was an 84.
I had the sibling of that car.
Oh, okay.
I'm well aware.
It was underwhelming to say the least.
So was that your worst car, hopefully?
Um, it was up there.
The biggest POS that I had, when I was drag racing and autocrossing both,
and I was doing an engine swap, I think in my, in my Mustang,
I bought for $300 in Mercury Lynx, which, yeah, which I called the Lynx-Tang GT,
which I autocrossed it on snow tires and with the seat mount broken,
doing this and the turns and, and that was a pile that it got me through a winter and had fun with it.
Yeah.
Hopefully you were in the class by yourself,
not because we didn't want you to play with other people,
but nobody else had to drive something like that.
Yeah, it was, it was bad.
All right.
Well, all right.
It wasn't manual though.
It wasn't manual.
All right.
Well, there's some.
It wasn't manual.
Some redeeming quality.
But back then that was because they were too cheap to put the automatic in.
100%.
All right.
So, let's see.
We're going to go with one of our co-host's favorite question.
It is, what is your favorite car movie or car from a movie of all time?
So MJ, you get to go first on this one.
Could be TV.
Could be TV too.
We're not, we're not picky.
Yeah.
Um, it's probably just the ones that, that just got me just continue to get me so excited
about cars was smoking the Bandit and Cannonball.
Nice.
So, has a history for you then.
Yeah.
So either that trans am from the original smoking the Bandit or that Lamborghini
Kuntas from the original Cannonball run and not just because I just remember just
the intro to Cannonball run is just epic.
Definitely is.
Definitely is.
All right.
What about you, Scott?
You've had time to ponder.
You've got that.
So that's, that's an easy one for me.
I blame my parents for my car path and car.
Well, yeah.
So did the courts, by the way.
My car path in life.
So I was born in 72.
In 1976, Gumball rally came out.
And my parents at four years old took me to the theater and I watched Gumball
rally when I was four years old.
Wow.
Yeah.
So I blame, I blame a lot of my, my car issues with that.
And, uh, in that one, uh, probably the Cobra and that one would be my favorite out of that one.
Okay.
All right.
Very well.
Jeremy, did you pick one out?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I got a lot of them.
I know.
That's the problem.
All right, boys.
You ready?
What is, could be growing up or current today?
What is your favorite cereal?
Nice.
Vicky hates when I do these, but that's fun.
I don't sleep in the bed.
Waffle crisp.
Waffle crisp.
Ooh, that's a new waffle crisp.
We have not had that one before.
You know, there's, the sad part is there's probably somebody who listens to our podcast
who actually has these recorded and like an Excel spreadsheet.
If you do, garage heroes and training at gmail.com.
I'm dying to see who's winning some of these, but yeah.
All right.
All right.
MJ, you got to beat waffle.
Chris, what's, what's better?
What's the best?
I'm honey bunches of votes right now.
I know, but what's cereal?
We don't want to know your nickname.
You know.
I think we, I think we, I think we lost him on that one.
All right.
Ms. Vicky, where are you going?
Yeah.
All right.
What is the one thing that few people know about you that would surprise them?
Oh, Scott's got a great one for this.
I do.
All right.
So if this doesn't work for you too, we can employ the dual guests option,
which is MJ.
What's the one thing about Scott that no one knows?
And would surprise them.
And then Scott gets to do it to MJ.
And if you don't do it well, Jeremy's going to jump in and say, wait, wait, wait.
There's more.
There's more.
Oh, I got a good one for that.
All right.
Go for it.
So as MJ said, we went to high school together, but didn't really know each other.
But I do remember seeing him in the hallway.
And he had a satchel.
Oh.
Some would call it a Merce.
A Merce?
A man purse?
It was bigger than a Merce, but yeah.
A wrestling wannabe, you know, was he wearing the rather colorful pants that were popular at the time?
It was like a leather, kind of like a shoulder thing.
So things haven't changed.
Because I was like, yeah, basically.
Sorry, MJ.
I should have let him go first.
Yeah, maybe.
He just upgraded yours, I'll tell you.
Three clicks, I believe, was what I heard in the background.
What do you think, MJ?
What's something about Scott that nobody knows?
What surprised him?
That he is the star of, there's an only fans page called Dadbots.
Nice.
And he does that full-time.
Nice.
Follow up.
MJ's my only subscriber.
It's such a deal.
All right, very nice.
Let's see, Miss Vicki, is this your turn or do I have to go back here?
That was my turn.
Okay, all right.
All right, so I'm going to have to babble for this one a little bit.
So Jeremy, after I asked the question, give some time to think.
Put the beard down.
What is the coolest car ever?
Yes, Jeremy, you can now give them some time to think.
What were you going to say?
I can't get them to shut up.
You guys are going to wear that?
You guys just fuck with me.
Jeremy's got audio evidence to contrary.
All right, very well.
Indiana Jones wears one.
Oh my.
It's a satchel and Indiana Jones wears one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, okay.
All right, very well.
You're owned a satchel.
He's a damn liar.
That is such a lie.
He calls it a merc.
But anyway, coolest car ever.
I think it might have been a business bag
or something that you wear over your shoulder.
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.
You did the business with the bag.
All right, coolest car.
Coolest car ever.
Who wants to go?
Scott?
MJ?
MJ?
Scott?
Coolest car?
Not best car.
Not best satchel car?
Coolest car.
Coolest car.
You get no more.
In your opinion.
You get no more.
That's it.
Coolest car.
Could be a make and a model.
Could be a specific one.
Could be a one off.
Could be once again.
It's your podcast.
Enjoy the ride.
Oh, I love and would love to drive the new Lamborghini Rivolto.
Okay.
I like the high tech of that car.
And I've always loved how Lamborghini just lays that windshield down almost flat.
That's pretty cool car.
I mean, there's a zillion cool cars.
I know.
That's why you got to do the coolest car.
Yeah.
Scott, can you beat it?
You got anything?
I'm going to say the 917 Can-Am Porsche, the one that had like, what, 1200 horsepower,
some ridiculous amount.
I mean, when they turned it down, sure.
I mean.
Yeah, exactly.
Because it was just, I mean, it was, there was nothing to it other than just a
crap little horsepower that, you know, painted lines between the turns with its time.
And then just, it was so completely crazy enough that was, that's probably,
that's probably up there.
Going back to your drag racing roots, so to speak.
Exactly.
All right, Jeremy, what's, which ones tickle in your fancy right now?
Um, do, do, do, do, do.
Oh, Bill, you erased what I wrote.
I always do.
All right.
Because no one else will ask.
There we go.
This is always my favorite question.
Clarkson, Hammond, May, Chris, Matt, or other, and why?
You want to go, Scott?
Boy, uh, that is tough.
It's not May because that guy bores me to death.
He's very similar to you.
He drives about the same.
Yep.
Yep.
Captain Slow.
Um, I think Clarkson, um, just because he gives zero Fs about anything or what anybody
thinks or anything else, no filter.
I just, I love that guy the way he carries himself.
And, and for younger audiences, that did not change with the mega amounts of money
that they have.
That was all there from the beginning.
That was him when he was in high school.
I know someone who went to high school with him and he was that same way.
Really?
You know, Adrian Newey?
Uh, no, no.
My buddy Ian's father went to school with him.
Okay.
I was hoping he knew Adrian Newey because I was going to say, why is he on the bus?
Anyway, not like he's busy right now or anything.
Anyway, MJ, where are you going?
Yeah, that was an easy one.
That's Clarkson for me for, for really the same reasons.
I love when there's unfiltered and, you know, it would have been awesome if
that show was 100% not filtered.
Yeah.
So I got a second part of that question.
That original or the American version?
There's multiple American versions.
Well, the first American version.
Uh, so that's Rutledge and Rutledge and Blank and Adam.
And then, uh, who's the driver?
Let's just try.
I can see him.
I can't take it.
Yeah, what's his name?
There was an actor, wasn't there?
There wasn't there an actor in it?
There was a comedian, I think it was.
Rutledge Wood was the comedian, you know?
Yeah.
No, the other guy was a comedian.
He just wasn't funny.
Yeah, for me, for me, it's easy.
There's only one, but.
Yeah, I'm the original, the original one from, from Europe.
Okay.
And, and I, I like just, I just want to see them test cars.
You know, the funny stuff is funny for five or maybe between commercial, you know,
like, give me 15 minutes, but when they do a whole show on that, yeah, it's long to me.
Tanner Faust is the name.
I just thought of it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And Tanner's a good guy.
He is, he is.
He's beaten me.
He beats most people though.
So, yeah.
He's pretty tough.
He's alright.
He's alright.
He's not alright.
So, Scott, where are you going?
American or?
Um.
England or Australia or?
I think I've got to keep that one.
I will say the episode when they first got on Amazon was incredible.
I, I, I've rewatched that one a few times just because the way it was,
you know, it was produced the way they did it,
but the kind of getting back together and how they started it out,
just that whole opening sequence of driving out, you know, once they get out to the desert,
you know, I was just incredible.
I love that, but, uh, but yeah.
If anybody wants to see what a car show would be without a budget, that's a good one.
Yep.
How many, how many helicopters can we have in one shot?
Yeah, no problem.
Oh, yeah.
Ms. Ficky, you got one?
I do.
What is your, uh, what is your favorite track?
And what is your favorite turn on a track and the reasons why?
I've got, I, for me, it's going to be VIR and, uh, the, the climbing S is there.
It's more than one turn, but just flying through there at a hundred plus bouncing them
side to side was just incredible.
Just, that's a lie.
He's never got a hundred.
I've got my, I've got my app.
I can show you.
Thank you.
It was nerve wracking, but it was, it was kind of one of those things coming up to
it as like, I know it can be done.
I've watched it done.
Can I do it?
Can I do it?
And yeah, it was, it was incredible.
MJ, is it VIR?
Is it somewhere else?
Well, geez, VIR is awesome.
I got to do the, uh, Daytona Rolex set up a couple of times and that's the fastest
that I ever drove.
And so I would, I mean, there's a lot of tracks that are great, but I'd say that
Rolex set up was pretty special.
And then I know this will sound, it's so weird because the track isn't amazing,
but my home track, cause it is what it is.
We live in Iowa is we have a track called, well now it's called I 29.
It used to be mid American motor plex.
And then what was it called after that, Scott?
In between, it was Raceway Park of the Midlands RPM.
Yeah.
It's just south of Omaha.
And, um, as you're coming back onto a reasonably long straightaway, it's not the main straight.
I'm trying to think it's turned one, two, three, probably turned four or five.
I think it's four.
I think it's four.
If you hit that just right, and I feel like I've got the lying down on that, you can exit at
an insane amount of speed and the car is, you have to judge it just right.
Like I love driving all cars.
Doesn't matter if it's a Miata or something that I kind of lean towards a big V8 rear
wheel drive, tons of power car.
And you, if you are willing to hold that, hold it down there, that is a fun,
it's just a flat corner.
There's a reasonable amount of grip, but that one I always exit out of there.
I'm like, how in the world did the car stay on as I'm all the way to the ground, you know,
to the floor with the pedal?
It's so right now I kind of like that corner.
Very good.
Very good.
All right.
For you guys, I'm doing this for you.
This is the question and it always ends up with me sleeping in the bathtub tonight.
So we are going to win the lottery.
We have, as part of the lottery, we're going to win and buy a desert island.
And on that desert island, we're going to create a racetrack.
We're going to have a racetrack that is asphalt and another racetrack that's off road.
So as a thank you for coming on to our guests, we're going to make sure that we have the
five cars that you want at this island resort.
You don't have to bring anything.
Everything's paid for.
It's part of what we do.
It's how we roll.
So what five cars do we need to have on the island for you?
Now, when you say off road, you mean like?
Yeah.
Desert there.
Okay.
It's your podcast.
It's your racetrack.
Off road racetrack.
It can be anything like a road course.
Like it's a motorplex.
It's got everything.
Could be rally.
Could be trophy trucks.
Could be king of the hammers.
Could be whatever.
You name it.
Could be a drag strip.
It's a big lottery.
Huge.
I like the sound of this.
So do I.
I just switched the lottery.
I'm going to go with the trophy truck.
I just always thought those were cool.
You know, you got 16 feet of suspension travel.
You can hold it wide open at,
what do they hit?
Like 140 I think through the whoops.
That'd be just nuts.
Depends what they're driving over, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So those things are nuts.
I would love to have a trophy truck.
I would...
I would love to have an original Ford GT.
I just think those things are just cool.
They just sound mean.
I'd want to have my friend's race car that I was talking about.
Street legal race car.
I believe there's some quotes in that sentence there,
but we'll let you know.
There were.
There were 100%.
I would love to have my current Fox body.
Speaking of unlimited budgets,
I would love to have that there
because I've put too much time into it, not to have.
He's got five cars in the world of all time
and he's picking a Fox body.
All right, come on.
I mean, three of them are Fords too.
And of course, what else would I have?
I got to go with what attracts you, Jeremy.
And last one.
We'll apparently have to have a full garage facility
to keep these things running while you're here,
but that's fine.
That's all right.
You set a limited budget.
We've got 30 mechanics on board,
just to keep these things on the track.
The cars may be cheaper than fixing those things,
but go ahead.
Let's go with a 9.62.
9.62.
I like that.
I didn't know Ford made a 9.62.
Which year was that?
That was Franz Ford.
He was the off-sheet driver.
Oh, Franz.
Yeah, the double F in the family.
Yeah, I remember him.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, he wasn't called the deuce.
He was double F.
Okay.
There you go.
MJ.
Now, is this a big island?
So it's huge.
It's a great track, whatever kind of track,
and it can be an off-road track or a paid track.
It can't be one.
Anything.
It could be both.
It could be all.
I mean, we have beaches.
I mean, we have, if you want it,
you know, this lottery, I'm telling you.
When it happens, it's going to be pretty cool.
Dirt bikes side-by-sides.
I mean, you name it.
Skateboard park, whatever you want, sir.
Yep.
So I tend to lean towards factory vehicles
that haven't been molested, which I get it.
There's different people.
But I, so I'd like to see,
and I'm not a pickup truck guy,
and I'm not even a Stellantis guy.
But one vehicle would be the new Ram TRX.
Okay.
You know, with, if I have the name right,
the one with the big Hellcat engine in it.
Yeah.
So we're going to have to have a wide,
wide racetrack now,
because everything's got the size of my house.
Off-road thing, just to try that.
And then I would say,
I definitely would probably like to have that Revuelto there.
Really?
Okay.
Just to try it.
And I would have a new ZR1 there, the new ZR1.
And probably a Porsche GT2.
G, I'm sorry, the Turbo, 9-11 Turbo.
Okay.
The modern one or particular generation?
No, I do a modern one.
Um, whenever I'm in those, it is beyond shocking.
How quick those goddamn cars are.
And last car, man, there's so many good cars.
It's always easy, the first couple,
and then you're like, oh, I've only got a couple left.
I know.
I know, right?
There's just so many awesome cars.
For the record, by FoxBody, you can pick that.
It's all open.
Right.
Just because you could doesn't often mean you should though.
You know what?
This will be weird, but the last gen Camaro ZL1 1LE.
Really?
Yep.
Just something simple, but that just devours up that track.
And I'll use the air conditioned seats.
And the great suspension on a smooth track on the island.
I love that.
Air conditioning, radio.
Sounds like your race car.
Hey, that sounds like my race car.
Yes.
CD player.
Don't forget CD player.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
CD player.
Yeah.
And it works.
Very correct CDs are always in it.
That's right.
If you guys want to, you can bring your own driver playlist
and you can pop the CD in during the pit race.
And you know, just don't let lemon see it
because they don't like that.
That's one of the, not one of the three things
that's allowed to do on pit lane.
All right.
All right.
Last one, Jeremy.
What do you got?
Where are you going?
Well, I'm going to continue with what we just said.
What is your favorite driving song?
Oh, it's down towards the bottom.
All right.
I got mad.
All right.
Girls just want to have fun, isn't it?
This is too much of a layup.
Yes.
This is too much of a layup.
Ophelia, right?
It's Ophelia.
You know.
You see, he seems like more of a,
he seems like more of a
sparkly vampire twilight kind of guy to me.
Yeah.
No.
One of my favorite groups, and this is a layup for Jeremy,
is the Butthole Surfers.
Well, I mean, Jeremy is a weight of group.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And they've got a song called
Ulcer Breakout that if you want to get your adrenaline going,
and I don't listen to all the music when I'm driving fast,
but it's just a song that just, it's a,
it's a good semi-car related that just gets going.
Okay.
I do not believe we've had Butthole Surfers on the podcast before,
but you know, if they're interested,
garage yours in training at gmail.com.
I'm sure we could ask them a car question.
They're down in Austin.
So next time you go to Kota.
All right.
First time I've gone to Kota, but that's okay.
MJ, where are you going?
So there are songs, you know, that you want to have,
you don't want to let anybody know you're listening to,
that you just love.
Like his satchel.
Yeah.
And then there's a Windows down playlist
where you're letting the 14 speakers roll.
No, your favorite driving song.
God dang.
It's just, that's such, there's just a zillion songs.
It's Little Red Corvette, isn't it?
Right.
Holy cow.
Karma Chameleon.
Just because it has car in the first word,
that doesn't mean that it's a car song.
Dang, that's actually a good question.
And I wanted to hit that track.
You want some more time?
We can come up with another.
You can, you can read,
It's just a podcast.
You listen to podcasts.
I do it.
You can have another one the next time you come on.
Yeah, hate me, hate me if you want,
but grew up in the 80s.
I actually like Duran Duran.
Oh, I like Duran Duran.
And I like the song Come Undone.
Good one.
Good one.
Good one.
Now I gotta say good one.
I can listen to, like anytime that's on,
it's like, stop what I'm doing.
It's a, I just love that song.
I would have, I would have put you down.
Honestly too, the, the rock group,
my darkest days as a version of Come Undone
that is really, really good.
And I usually don't like remakes.
All right.
Well, we can recommend that too.
We can, we can add that to our Spotify lists.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Spiky, your last one.
What do you think?
Oh, let me see.
Do you want some time?
I got, I got mine ready.
Go ahead.
All right.
We're going to stay with music
because it drives me crazy
when I don't do car questions.
So you're going to make a supergroup.
You're going to be this producer
of this supergroup.
On this group, you have two guitarists,
one bass player, one or two vocalists,
if they're co-ed, a drummer.
And if you have other, you know,
keyboards or whatever, I'm not,
I'm not going to persecute you if you do.
Who's in your supergroup all time?
All right.
I'll go with vocalist, Glenn Danzig.
Really?
Okay.
Just because his voice is incredible.
Co-co-singer would be Axl Rose.
Just got your male and female there.
He's got such an incredible range.
Guitarist, I'm going to go with Joe Strummer.
I was a big fan of them.
Clash for the home game players.
Oh, yeah. Sorry for the clash.
You can have two.
Another guitarist will slash, I think,
the one with the guns and roses
and again, grow up in the 80s.
Bassist.
I have a joke I've been waiting for this for so long
and nobody's said it yet, but gone.
Bassist.
Oh, boy.
God, I'm drawing a blank.
Joe Walsh.
Was he a bass player?
No.
No, he was a guitarist.
I'm sure he can play bass, but not known as a bass player.
All right.
I'll go with because it's one that I like him
is Chris Novichelak.
Okay.
Biggest dude in rock and roll that I know of.
Nirvana.
Those playing home games.
8 feet tall.
Yes, 8 feet tall.
And Drummer.
I'll stay in that same vein.
I'm a Foo Fighters fan and the energy puts into it.
So I'm going to say Dave Grohl.
So you want two Nirvana and two guns and roses?
All right.
Very well.
Yeah.
All right.
Very well.
MJ, you're into this question or are you sitting there
saying why am I on a racing podcast?
No, no.
You have gotten, you were lucky enough to have Scott
answer that question and not the right person
to answer that question because I don't know
the name of any of those people, you know, anybody.
That's fine.
That's fine.
Yeah.
I'm pretty, pretty lame on that.
I know the music, the sounds that I like,
but I don't, the players of the instruments.
Well, that's fine.
That's fine.
It's just, you know, we try to be well-rounded,
I think.
Absolutely.
You know, the good thing is that for you,
the podcast is over.
The bad thing is we still have close to 60 questions
that we are going to ask you the next time you come on.
And as you can tell, they range from racing stuff
to what is the Mount Rushmore of Candy.
So you never know where we're going.
You never know what we're doing.
But I think one thing that we can count on is hopefully,
if you guys are willing and still taking the drugs
that you're taking right now, you'll come back on
after you race with us and Jeremy at the first race
because we like to do post-race episodes.
And wanted to thank you for all your time.
And if any of our people want to go to an extreme
experience event where you guys will be instructing,
where would they be going coming up soon?
G2 Motorsports Park in March.
I'll be there.
I think MJ will be there too.
That's down in Texas.
South of Dallas.
Yeah.
South of Dallas.
Okay.
I think it's South of Dallas, isn't it?
I don't know.
I mean, but that was built after we left.
So we lived in Dallas.
Yeah.
It would make sense.
We're doing Circuit Florida.
Oh, okay.
Which I think is a membership track.
Yeah, baby.
You and I will be there.
Cool.
Yeah.
All right.
So if you want to avoid Jeremy, you go to the first one.
If you want to see Jeremy,
medical assistance is required for these types of conditions.
It's fine.
Don't worry.
Santa Jeremy.
And it is north of Dallas.
So I'll stand correct.
It's north.
Okay.
I was going to say there's lots of stuff south of Dallas,
but not a lot.
I mean, they were going to build that super collector there.
And then it stopped.
And then it's just kind of like a wasteland out there,
at least was when we drove through.
Anyway, we're lived there.
All right.
Thank you guys, Jeremy.
This was a good idea.
It hurts to actually say you had a good idea.
You know, deep, deep.
Every once in a while.
Blind squirrel finds a nut.
That's it.
That's it.
Guys, I really appreciate you guys taking the time and coming on.
This was fun.
Thanks for the invite.
That was great.
No worries.
Thanks, everybody.
Have a great night.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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About this episode
Scott Mattis and MJ Trierweller join the Garage Heroes in Training team to share their unique journeys into the world of racing and automotive passion. From high school drag racing to instructing at extreme driving events, both guests recount their experiences and the thrill of pushing high-performance cars to their limits. The conversation dives into their favorite vehicles, bucket list tracks, and the camaraderie developed through shared adrenaline-fueled adventures. With humor and camaraderie, they reflect on the 'bad decisions' that often accompany their love for cars.
Jeremey had a great idea and for once it was, lol. We welcomed long time car enthusiast and instructors Scott Mattis and Mark Jon (MJ) Trierweller to the podcast and we talk about everything and still only scratched the surface. Can't wait to have them on again.
If you would like to help grow our podcast and high-performance driving and racing:
You can subscribe to our podcast on the podcast provider of your choice, including the Apple podcast app, Google music, Amazon, YouTube, etc.
Also, if you could give our podcast a (5-star?) rating, that we would appreciate very much. Even better, a podcast review would help us to grow the passion and sport of high performance driving and we would appreciate it.
Best regards,
Vicki, Jennifer, Ben, Alan, Jeremy, and Bill
Hosts of the Garage Heroes in Training Podcast and Garage Heroes in Training racing team drivers
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