“Full throttle” just means you’re pressing the gas pedal all the way down. It tells the car to give you the maximum engine response it can, though the exact result can depend on the gear and the car’s settings.
A “setup” is how you adjust the car to make it behave the way you want for a particular track. Small changes can noticeably affect how the car turns and how fast you can drive it.
Power steering helps you turn the wheel with less effort. That can make it easier to steer the car precisely, especially when you’re pushing hard on a track.
Here, “ratios” means how much you have to turn the steering wheel to get the wheels to turn. A shorter ratio usually makes the steering respond faster.
They’re talking about putting an Acura Integra steering rack into their car. That rack changes the steering “gearing,” so the car turns more quickly or more slowly depending on the ratio.
They’re talking about a specific race track where they tried the steering changes. Tracks can stress the car in different ways, so the same car can feel different there.
A steering rack is the mechanism that turns your steering wheel motion into the wheels actually turning. If you change the rack, the car can feel sharper or more relaxed when you steer.
“Stock settings” means the car is set up like it came from the factory, not tuned for the track. If you drive a different way, the factory setup might not grip the way you expect.
Drifting is when you steer so the car slides sideways while still moving forward. Some race events don’t allow it, so drivers can get called out for doing it.
When someone says the car “rotated,” they mean it turned more sharply into the corner. It’s about getting the car to pivot the way you want instead of just sliding straight.
Alignment is how straight (and angled) your wheels sit. If it changes, the car can feel off—like the steering wheel isn’t centered or the car doesn’t track straight.
A subframe is like a strong platform the suspension bolts to. If it shifts around, the wheels can end up pointed the wrong way and the steering won’t feel right.
High grip means the tires are sticking really well to the road. When that happens, the car gets stressed more, and weak spots or looseness can show up.
These collars are small parts that help stop parts from sliding around where they bolt together. The goal is to keep the suspension from shifting when the tires grip hard.
A “cage” here means a roll cage. It’s metal bars inside the car that help protect you in a crash and can also make the car feel more rigid when driven hard.
A 1993 Honda Civic was built mainly for normal commuting and efficiency. Here it’s being used to illustrate that if you push an older car hard—especially in corners—it can stress and damage the body structure.
“G” is how hard the car is accelerating compared to gravity. “Lateral G” is the sideways force you get when cornering hard, and it can stress the car’s structure.
A “K-series motor” is a specific Honda engine family. The point here is that this Civic didn’t have the kind of engine that many people associate with Honda performance builds.
The B pillar is the main support post in the middle of the car’s cabin. If it’s separated from the floor, the car’s safety structure can be seriously compromised.
The rocker panel (often just called the rocker) is the long structural panel along the lower sides of the car. If the rocker is detached from the B pillar, it signals a loss of side-impact and overall body rigidity.
Concept
build a car around Jackie
This is a reference to driver-fit engineering: modifying the car’s interior and safety equipment so the driver can sit comfortably and safely with the required hardware (like a roll cage). It highlights that cage geometry and seating position can be driver-specific rather than one-size-fits-all.
Down beams are the angled or vertical tubes that go from the main cage area down toward the floor. They help the cage stay strong and spread the forces into the car.
ABS is a safety feature that helps your brakes not lock up. When you brake hard, it keeps the wheels turning so you can steer. If someone says they’re “putting ABS in,” they mean adding that system to a car that didn’t have it before.
The Acura RSX is a small sports car made by Acura. It’s designed to feel quick and handle well, rather than be a big, heavy car. In the podcast, it’s mentioned as a version of a sports car people recognize, and that more people are paying attention to it now.
Wheel speed sensors are small sensors that tell the car how fast each wheel is spinning. The car uses that info to help braking and stability systems work correctly.
Honda Integra is being used as a donor for suspension and ABS-related components, especially wheel speed sensors and wiring. The idea is to reuse Integra hardware so the ABS sensor inputs match what the car’s systems expect.
The chassis harness is the main wiring in the car’s body that connects lots of systems together. If you connect a front harness to it, the wiring has to match so everything reads correctly.
Car
K series
“K series” is a Honda engine family. Here, the point is that the engine bay around a K-series swap has tight space, so ABS parts and brake lines don’t always fit where you’d expect.
An engine mount is a structural bracket that holds the engine to the chassis and isolates vibration. In swaps or custom installs, mount placement affects where other components (like ABS lines/pump modules) can physically route.
The timing cover is a protective cover over the engine’s timing parts. If you’re routing hoses or wiring near the front of the engine, the cover can be a tight obstacle to work around.
The firewall is the wall between the engine compartment and the inside of the car. Wires and hoses often pass through it, so it matters a lot when you’re doing a custom install.
A fuse box is where the car’s electrical circuits are protected by fuses. If you move it, it usually means you’re rearranging wiring so everything fits and stays protected.
Resealing means putting new seals back in so the leaking stops. It’s like fixing a gasket so fluid can’t escape. If the inside parts aren’t badly worn, resealing can be enough.
The transmission is the part that changes gears so the engine can keep making power at different speeds. Here, they’re saying the car can’t get into fifth gear.
“Running rich” means the engine is using too much fuel for the amount of air it’s getting. It can make the car run rough and burn more gas than it should.
Term
wheel speed center
The wheel speed center is the computer that reads the speed from the wheel sensors. If it’s not working, the car may not know how fast the wheels are turning, which can affect safety systems and how the car behaves.
“V tech” refers to variable valve timing (often branded as VTEC on Honda engines), which changes valve timing for better performance and efficiency. If a car “doesn’t have V tech,” it typically means it lacks that variable-timing feature, which can make the engine feel less responsive in certain RPM ranges.
Term
D series
“D series” is Honda’s name for a group of engines. The speaker is basically saying that, for that engine family, missing the V-tech/variable timing feature is a letdown.
A wiring harness is basically the car’s electrical “wire bundle.” It connects the computer and sensors to everything in the car, and using the right one prevents electrical problems.
OEM parts are the same kind of parts the car originally used from the factory. They usually plug in and fit the way you’d expect, which makes projects less complicated.
“Honda Challenge” sounds like a racing group/class where the cars are Honda models. They’re saying that group didn’t show up this time, which is out of the ordinary.
Term
dicey
They mean the weather was risky and unpredictable. In racing, that can make the track slippery and harder to drive safely.
Topic
HPD events
HPD is commonly used in motorsports to refer to Honda Performance Development, which supports Honda-based racing and track programs. Here, the hosts mention HPD events as practice opportunities that could have helped drivers get “warmed up,” but they think people didn’t take advantage.
Camber is how tilted your tires are when you look at them from the front. If a turn is “off camber,” the tire doesn’t stay planted the same way, so the car may not go as fast or feel as smooth as you’d expect.
“Overspeed” just means you’re going into the corner faster than the car can safely handle. When that happens, you can’t make the turn where you planned, so you end up going wide or missing the line.
“Drop one tire” means one wheel hits an uneven or off-limit part of the track and loses traction. That can throw the car off its planned path for the next part of the corner.
Concept
clunky
“Clunky” means the car feels awkward or jerky instead of smooth when you turn and accelerate. It usually suggests the car isn’t gripping and transitioning between steps as well as it should.
Concept
turn 12 at the buckle
“The buckle” is the spot in a corner where things get tricky and the car can start to lose traction or line. If you’re making the turn “at the buckle,” you’re hitting that critical moment right as the car is at its limit.
Concept
devil's elbow
“Devil’s elbow” is the name of a specific corner on the track. The hosts are saying that because it’s off to the side (off camber), it doesn’t let you go as fast as it looks.
Concept
turn nine at walk
“At walk” means you can take that corner at a much slower pace than you’d think. The idea is that the corner’s shape makes it hard to go fast, even if it looks like you should.
Underdrive a corner means you go in slower or drive more cautiously than you could. It’s a way to avoid breaking something if the corner is rough or risky.
Torque is the engine’s pulling power—the force that helps the car get moving and respond when you press the gas. A car can have decent horsepower but still feel weak if it doesn’t have enough torque.
“Grid life” is a type of racing event and community. A “grid life car” is a car built to match the rules for that racing series, not just a normal modified street car.
Term
GLTC car
“GLTC” sounds like a specific racing class within the Grid Life events. It usually comes with rules about what you can change on the car, so the build has to be done a certain way.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a sports car made for fast driving and handling. People talk about it a lot because it’s built to perform, especially on roads that feel like a track. In the podcast, it’s being suggested as the car to choose for that kind of event.
The Ford Mustang is a sports car with a strong engine and a classic look. It’s commonly talked about because it’s popular and fun to drive. The podcast comment is basically saying it’s bigger than they thought.
The flywheel is a heavy spinning part connected to the engine. It helps the engine run smoothly and it’s part of the clutch setup—so if its bolts loosen, it can cause big drivetrain problems.
The starter is what you use to crank the engine when you turn the key or press the button. If the car had a major mechanical failure, the starter can be affected too.
The clutch is what lets you shift gears by disconnecting the engine from the gearbox. If it gets damaged, the car may not shift or may slip.
Concept
eighth gen
“Eighth gen” means the 8th generation of a certain car model. A “hammered” one is basically a beat-up, high-mileage car you’d buy cheaply for parts.
Term
K20
“K20” usually means a Honda engine family people swap into other cars. It’s popular because it’s strong and there are lots of parts and tuning options for it.
They’re talking about bolts that have to be the right size and tightened correctly. If the bolts aren’t correct or aren’t tight enough, the parts can loosen over time.
The bell housing is the metal part that connects the engine to the transmission. If it gets damaged, you often have to replace or swap parts to get everything lined up and working again.
When an engine runs, it gets hot and parts grow slightly. When it cools, they shrink back—repeating this can make some bolts loosen if they weren’t secured properly.
The crankshaft is the main rotating shaft inside the engine. If it gets damaged, it can be expensive to fix, sometimes meaning replacing the whole engine.
K24 is Honda’s name for a common 2.4-liter engine family. The discussion is about how K24s tend to cost differently and how they can make torque compared with other K-series versions.
The BMW 3.0 CSL is a BMW sports car built with racing in mind. It’s the kind of car people connect with track driving and performance. The podcast is using it as an example while describing fast, controlled driving.
Concept
catcher's mitt
“Catcher’s mitt” appears to be a named spot on the track used for a training exercise. The idea is to hit that area correctly so the car behaves predictably before the next turn.
Concept
wide drift
A “wide drift” is when the car slides sideways on purpose through a corner, but with a lot of room around you. It helps the driver keep control and choose a smoother path through the turn.
Here, “compression” means the track has a dip or bump that pushes the suspension down. How you hit it affects grip and steering right after, so drivers try to time it.
“Turn five” just means a particular corner on the track. They’re pointing to the exact spot where the car feels wrong so they can figure out what’s causing it.
A trackwalk means walking the race track on foot to look at the pavement and corner spots up close. People do it to notice things like bumps or changes in grip that the car will feel later.
They’re talking about a subtle change in the track’s shape—like the pavement tilting a little. Even if you can’t see it, the tires can feel it and the car can act weird when you hit that spot.
An angle finder is a tool that measures how tilted something is. Here, they’re using it to measure a small alignment angle difference that you can’t easily spot just looking.
Term
knobs migrate
This sounds like an adjustable setting on the car (often suspension) that slowly moves out of where you set it. If it shifts, the ride can feel different—like the suspension is set to a different firmness. It’s usually fixable by re-setting and locking the adjustment.
A spacer is a thin piece you put between the wheel and the car so the wheel sits farther out. People use it to create clearance for parts like the brakes, or to change how the car’s wheels line up. It can also change how the car feels when you drive.
Calipers are part of the braking system. They clamp the brake pads onto the spinning brake disc to slow the car down. Wheel fitment has to leave enough space so the wheel doesn’t hit the caliper.
Wheel track is how far apart the left and right wheels are on an axle. If the front wheels are farther apart than the rear, the car can feel a bit “off” or different. It often comes from how the wheels are mounted or spaced.
“Sideways” here means the car is sliding with its nose not pointing where it’s going. It usually happens when the tires lose grip in the turn, so the car rotates and you’re basically controlling a slide.
When you turn, the car pushes sideways on the tires. That sideways push is called lateral load, and it affects how the car reacts—especially if you hit a curb or bump while the tires are already loaded in a corner.
“Rotates your car” means the car’s front end swings around more than you planned. That can happen when a bump or curb changes how the tires grip and how the suspension loads during the turn.
Seam sealer is material used to fill and seal gaps between track surface sections. On race tracks, it can change how the tires interact with the pavement—sometimes improving consistency, other times creating uneven grip—especially as temperatures change.
The “quarter mile” is a standard drag-racing distance—about 400 meters. If a car can “do the quarter mile,” it means it accelerates quickly in a straight line.
On a race track, the “exit” is where you leave the turn and start accelerating. Passing there is common because the car with better traction and a cleaner line can pull ahead as you speed up.
“Drive underneath them” means you try to pass on the inside of the turn. If you can get a better line and still control the car through the corner, you can come out ahead.
Concept
top of the track
“Top of the track” is basically the far end or the faster part of the circuit. If you can’t get by when you try, you may have to wait a long time before you get another chance.
LIVE
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.
You are one of the few guests that we have that we go in.
We don't need a dock.
We just wing it because it's way too much fun.
I have parts for it.
You do?
I don't think that is 100% fully installed properly yet.
I'm just, I'm not a mechanic.
You know, I'm just going with what my gut says there's more to it.
How about this one?
I know what that is.
That's definitely not installed properly.
Did you take the plastic off the off the screen yet?
Nope.
And I bought it used.
So the person I bought it from also didn't take the plastic off the screen.
That's fantastic.
Yeah, yeah, I know you can't control yourself.
So why don't we just get started?
I think that's a great idea.
OK, what are you doing?
I'm looking around for my notepad because I know me.
I know you, too.
Yeah, it's OK.
Are you ready?
I am.
This is going to be fun.
Always fun.
Tell me when you're ready, Miss.
Ready.
OK.
Welcome to the garage here as an training podcast.
We're back.
Who else is host type?
I'm Vicki.
You are Miss Vicki, one of our faves.
Yeah, I know.
I'm so excited.
I know you're way too excited.
You need to just tone it down there a little bit.
Let's see, how do we introduce our guest today?
Honda Challenge Legend.
Maybe I don't know.
That sounds pretty good.
Let's see.
Working on her new car, I think it's not quite there yet, but it's working on it.
If you need set up assistance on anything that starts with the word Honda,
usually the person I would call first.
I'm not saying everybody would call her first, but that's OK.
The first direct coach of the garage here as a training team at NJMP Gridlife
event where everybody learned a bunch.
I think everybody who's what, you got one?
No, keep going.
OK, you put your finger up like I got one.
I'm like, OK, you can do this.
Oh, no, I got one.
OK, I believe anybody who has listened to the podcast knows already who this is,
does not need an interest.
What? Works for Win Shadow for a little while.
Did she? Oh, who knew?
OK, that's that.
I didn't know Miss Vicki's jealous.
She's a photographer.
I don't think anybody needs an introduction, but just in case.
Welcome to the podcast, Miss Jackie.
What an introduction.
Thank you.
No worries.
No worries.
I believe Miss Vicki considers you one of her.
Actually, I left one thing out.
A honored attendee at Miss Vicki's anniversary gift, giving over to.
I was there.
You were there.
Have pictures and video.
I know.
And Miss Vicki's like, who's car is that?
We're like, you aren't smart right now.
Yep.
Did not did not occur to her.
But that's OK.
We're going to talk.
We're going to talk me out of before we get out of here, though, Miss Jackie.
We got to get her in that seat a lot more, a lot more.
I was going to say, how's that car going, Miss Vicki?
Well, I got I got an award at the Ross Bentley thing for how did they put it?
Better to drive a slow car, fast and a fast car slow.
That's good.
Yeah.
I like that.
Yep.
I smacked it around a little bit.
It's going well.
So I know this is not going to cause a surprise look on Miss Jackie's face.
Alyssa was there.
And yeah, exactly.
Yep.
Yep.
She did a reference lap for me.
She did a reference lap for Miss Vicki.
Now, if you were to guess Miss Vicki's min speed versus Alyssa's.
What do you think?
What track?
What corner?
It was all the corners.
They were all the same.
It was that pine view run.
I don't know if you've ever been there.
I would say on a slow corner, probably at least five miles an hour.
Okay.
She was within one or two on every turn.
Really?
The problem was, I know, I mean, she was there.
The problem was she was there a lot.
And Alyssa was like, you know.
Yeah.
Okay.
So.
Okay.
Okay.
So.
Here comes the defense.
Yes.
Yep.
You know, there was a time when somebody in all of my learning had told me, you have
to wait for the car to settle before you punch the gas.
And forever I had been waiting for the car to settle until I think it was, who told me
it was?
Scott?
No.
Peter?
Peter.
Okay.
No.
The other one.
The guy just data.
No.
Data.
Peter.
Peter.
Okay.
Peter Kross.
Peter Kross.
He says, why are you waiting?
Make it settle.
And I'm like, you could do that.
Also.
It's a biota.
It's fine.
It is fine.
Just floor it.
It's okay.
Okay.
That's right.
And then, then this was followed up by one of my favorite questions I've ever gotten.
And I had the probably the biggest non poker surprise look on my face when Miss Vicki
was not clear what full throttle meant.
I'm like, what do you mean you're not clear with full throttle meant?
She was thinking full throttle was foot to the floor fifth gear the whole time.
Oh, this sounds familiar.
There was no clarification because the okay.
So in all reality, these are the gaps in my learning because I've never had anybody.
I mean, you hear the jargon that comes.
You interpret it the best way you can and you do what you do.
But without somebody in the right seat or to clarify, there's little nuances.
I'm sure I'm not the only one that, well, as they go, but in all my learning, because
I think I've only had a right seat or like maybe twice ever.
Wow.
She, she came up during COVID.
Yeah.
There was that.
So, you know, there's these little nuances things that kind of like, what do you mean
you can, you can make the car settle without make the car waiting for the car to settle.
You can actually do something to make it settle.
You can something, something, I don't know.
So she's still not quite sure on the car taking a set thing.
She's like, what do you mean I can make it?
Well, how do I do that?
So, yeah, these are the little nuances.
I'm in nuance now.
Nuance is great.
Nuance is a good place to be.
So, anyway, I do, I do go back and I think about the time when you coached us at one
time and how flawless that was for me because the repetition that I came out, okay.
So, you know, for some context guys out there is that we had Jackie on board.
Is this your podcast or Jackie's podcast?
Okay.
Go ahead.
No, I'm just going to go ahead.
Finish your story.
Finish your story.
I'm just having fun.
Okay.
No.
Okay.
So, we had Jackie out to coach us for a day.
I think it was a day or a weekend, but anyway, it was at NJMP and she was using the AIM system
and she just put it in our car as soon as we came back in.
She plopped it back out.
We sat down with her.
She read it.
I had no idea what day to look like.
And she just told me, this is what you're doing.
This is what you can do.
And then as soon as I got back, it was like in the moment, but as soon as I got back on
track, I could like fix, make those adjustments in like real time, in real time.
And it was, it was amazing.
And it was just like, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And I tell you, I improved so much just in that one time that she was out there with
us.
I still think back on that, Jackie.
I really do with, you know, with big heart, big hearts.
You forgot Ms.
Jackie cheering for you against me in the same car.
I wasn't going to bring that up.
Yes.
She's sitting on the corner.
Your wife beat you.
I think you were my most improved person that day.
I think so.
It was a good day.
It was a really, really good day, I have to say.
It was a few seconds there.
Yep.
Which is good.
I'm not going to pull up the data and check.
We'll go with that.
I want to say it's either three or five, but I'm not sure.
Yes.
There was some margin there.
I believe everybody was happy.
So Ms.
Jackie, you've had the, well, since then you've had a lot transpire.
You've had the demise of a car, the resurrection of a car, which I'm not sure it's fully alive
yet.
It's kind of, you know, zombie-like at this point, maybe.
So you want to bring us up to speed because it's tough to tell from watching.
It's like, oh, she's, no, it's, oh, no, no.
I want to know what happened to the old car.
Tell us what happened.
Full story.
So we all remember my old car, the red EG that I had for like 18 years or something.
Like I raced it for longer than anyone on this planet is supposed to race a car.
And let's see.
It's been like two years.
Luckily, you don't push cars.
So obviously they last forever when you.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
I'm definitely not driving to the limit.
So what happened is a random failure.
I made some arrow changes, small stuff, but really kind of fine tuning a bunch of things.
And I put power steering in the car and I changed the steering.
I forgot about that.
Put an Integra rack in the ratios a little shorter, whatever.
Went to Walkins Glen and it was a completely different car.
Power steering was insane.
The rack was crazy.
The car just drove.
The car didn't drive different, but it had to be driven differently.
I did miss some things in my setup that weekend, but the car was like 1.7 seconds faster
and it didn't make any changes to tire or horsepower.
That's a pretty impressive steering rack for 1.7 seconds at your level.
Yeah, it's mostly, mostly the arrow and partially the power steering.
Because the car gets so loaded at that track, it's hard to like break and turn
in most places and the high speed stuff without power steering.
But I did miss something in the setup that took a little while to figure out
and the car was really pushy and my car is never pushy, so I had to drive it differently.
And one time going into the toe of the boot.
For those that have been there and are aware of the nuances.
So you go into the toe and you get on the brakes and you turn in and it goes uphill.
And right before you get to the apex, there's like a little dip.
It's very small and the car would usually kind of go over that and not be phased.
And it kind of went over and the front end coughed and that was it.
And I never got the front end back ever again.
Oh, stock settings.
I changed my line and it just wouldn't stick.
It's still at fast, but the front end wouldn't stick.
By the end of the weekend, I was driving like a 22 year old,
just flat over curbs and doing the most.
I got called in and Mike Waller can attest to this.
I got called in for drifting in turn one at Watkins Glen.
They call you in for drifting.
Well, when you do it over and over again, I didn't know.
You mean you're not allowed to do that?
Apparently not.
I was just trying to get the car rotated down in the pocket
and it just wouldn't do what I wanted.
Can you go with, listen, if I did it on every lap, obviously, I know how to do it.
So what's the problem?
I mean, I didn't get black flagged for it.
Oh, you just got called in for.
They just they radioed it in, you know, OK.
So I found they said they said quit being fancy.
Yeah, being a lunatic.
So, yeah, I reset my PB, but I didn't hit the time that I wanted.
But the car was better.
Fixed the setup change went to New Jersey for the first event with the new surface,
which is terrible. Yeah, you weren't a fan. I know that.
Oh, God, absolutely not.
And the car just wasn't good and the alignment moved.
And that never happens in my car.
Like the steering wheel was crooked.
Oh, no.
OK, it's about go over the front.
Because we just aligned it like two days before everything was tight.
Everything was good. OK, reset the tow went back out.
Everything was fine, whatever, but something is wrong.
So our thought was the subframe was moving.
Oh, yeah, when you start making a lot of grip, that happens.
And I was making a lot of grip.
So they make some collars that you can put in to keep the subframe from moving.
Would you have to take the subframe down, which is annoying
because I already had the subframe out once.
So I took the subframe down to put the collars in and I see this like mine
on the frame rail. I'm like, well, what is that?
I know what it is, but I'm being a little delusional.
I think it's dirt and I wasn't going to check it.
Because you didn't want it to admit to yourself.
I didn't. I didn't.
I said, let me check.
I know what it is, but maybe I'm wrong.
You know, I've been wrong before and I put my finger on it.
And sure enough, it's a crack in the frame rail.
And I just kind of looked around and was like, well, that's the end of this car.
And I've had it for so long and it just so happened.
As soon as I come out from underneath the car and just kind of like,
what am I going to do now?
And one of my friends pulls up in his BMW
and I was like, oh, well, you get to be the first person to hear
that this car is now dead.
And it's like, what do you mean?
I slide underneath and look and he looks like, oh, yeah, that's bad.
How long? How long was the seam?
So, you know, if you take the subframe down, the bolt hole is there from the bolt.
The subframe in it cracked on both sides of one of the bolt holes.
One side was all the way to the edge before it started to go up.
And the other side was around and starting to go up.
So when I was at Watkins Glen and it loaded up in the toe
and then it coughed, that was the frame rail breaking.
So my shock guy told me something years and years ago and I was like, yeah, OK.
I don't think I'll ever get there.
He said, you know, you went too far when you start breaking things.
And I called him like a week afterwards.
I was like, remember you told me that?
He goes, yeah, would you break?
So I broke my frame rail because, yeah, well, you've gone too far.
What is what do you mean gone too far?
Like you've raced too hard.
You've pushed the car too much.
I mean, in this case, the car was just old and tired.
But when you start putting a lot of load in the chassis,
if it can't take it, you're going to break things.
Right. I know people that have broken windshields and so well.
OK, now we got to put a cage in this thing, stuff like that.
Newer cars, it's not so much of an issue.
The chassis is inherently stronger from the factory.
1993 Civic that was meant to go get groceries
and get good mileage was not meant to have sustained lateral G over two.
And a couple hundred horsepower, 14 years or however long.
Right. I think it was like 16.
So. Well, it didn't come with a K series motor
and stock, I believe, either.
It didn't come with any of the engines that I ever had in it.
Wow. So, yeah, it got some of the boys together
because I needed help to get it apart.
We took it apart.
Some of the parts went other places.
And I was really sad and I had a conversation and she told me it was OK.
OK, now you can go and I went to the junkyard
and they pick it up with the crusher.
There's a video with a very sad. Oh, did you cry?
I made a halfway home before I started to cry.
Oh, sitting at a traffic light and it looked in the mirror
and there was no car in the trailer knowing that there wasn't a car at home.
And I was like, my gosh, that's like putting your dog down.
A hundred percent.
That's what it would feel like to me, I think.
I don't have room to keep it and there was no reason to keep it.
When we come back, you know, no, no.
People were saying, oh, you could fix it.
This and that. When we took that car apart, it was so bad.
The rear frame right rear frame rail was migrating up.
It was detached somewhere.
And it always did that, but it got worse as years went on.
Nothing in the back of the car was attached like where the taillights go to.
You can see through the floor.
It was detached.
The rocker was detached from the B pillar.
The B pillar was detached from the floor.
Lovely. Wow.
The only corner that was still OK was the right front.
So you had a cage with wheels on it.
Yep. And and drapery around the cage.
Yep. Yep. And never finished last.
I just had this like image of of her driving this thing.
And all of a sudden, like, it just all fall apart on the track.
Like, everything just fall off of it.
It's just like like the cartoon, like a yard sale.
Like the jacket just sitting there with a cage and nothing in it.
Just a steering wheel, just a steering wheel and a cage.
And everything is a yard sale on the track.
And we recaged that car and I don't think that helped.
I think it made it worse because I'm like,
well, let's put a new cage in it and tie it in everywhere.
And all that energy had to go somewhere.
So I think it just went to what was weak.
Yeah. No, that was the demise of that car.
Because it's not easy to get a car,
especially a civic sized car, caged that you fit in.
Well, because you're not you're not tiny.
I'm not tiny.
Um, she is long.
I am long. Yeah, I am tall, but most girls got some legs.
It's an understatement.
And that actually brings me into one of the reasons why my new car is not done.
For those that listen to your podcast, they probably also listen to High Maze.
And I'm pretty sure I found out that I was getting the car
that I got whilst recording with him.
I believe so.
Old Honda Challenge person built the car and then didn't really ever run it.
I forgot about it.
And they were like, I just want to see somebody do something with it.
So come and get it for a very attractive price.
And again, I love to live in delusion.
I'm finding this out right now.
I thought maybe I'd fit in a car with a cage in it and the cage was built
for someone that was at least a foot and a half shorter than me.
It's not a good plan.
Probably not.
No, probably not.
You don't fit in our civic 93 Civic and it's built for 62.
There's a fit sitting in my driveway.
I don't fit in that either.
That one is completely stock.
Need to build a car around Jackie is what needs to happen.
That's what I did with this car.
So once I realized that the cage wasn't going to fit,
got the old Milwaukee grinder out, cut a perfectly good roll cage out.
Now, mind you, this car ran it and drove when I bought it.
Drove it out of the trailer and into my driveway.
And now it's just that was just paint.
No, it's fine.
But I could get you out of it.
Hmm. I figured out where I wanted my seat.
Went to the cage builder, kind of recreated that with some wood.
I was like, OK, this is where your seat's going to go.
And he built the cage around it.
So for those that know civics and anything that's a two door,
probably is the same.
You have that kind of bump in the floor where the rear seats go.
Yes. That's where my main hoop is.
Really? Oh, it's way back there.
Oh, it's way back there.
It's like a foot past the B pillar.
Do you have any room for the down beams?
Yeah, like there's not a lot.
There's not a whole lot behind there.
Well, did you have to flatten some stuff?
Nothing.
So he actually used the plates where the old cage was
with the old rear legs make like hit the frame rail.
And the new car is a little bit bigger than the old one.
So that helps.
But yeah, it's like super tight everywhere.
But that set me back because I can't put the car together
to then take it apart, take it to the cage builder.
And if you don't get an appointment early,
you're not getting an appointment until March.
So I didn't get a cage appointment until March of last year.
And then I wanted to paint it.
And there was some going back and forth
and who's going to paint it and the guy was on vacation.
Actually called one of my customers because he's got a body guy.
I think I just want to paint the interior.
And I got the car back and the whole thing was painted.
Hmm, over bonus, right?
Bonus over spray over big time.
Championship white championship white over spray, you know.
And it was aside from like my truck, because I bought my truck brand new.
It was the nicest paint I had ever owned.
And I refused to touch it.
I got it back from paint.
I think in like May, June at the latest, I think it was May.
And I put it in the garage and I left it there.
Everybody's like, you're going to work on it.
And I'm like, no, I know it's absolutely perfect.
There is a ding or a mark in it.
I'm not going to touch it.
Mm hmm.
The first hole that I drilled in it took 45 minutes.
Well, it was made of metal, not like your other car, you know.
So so are you just kind of like emotionally exhausted
from the experience at this point?
We could go with that.
It's been a lot.
Um.
I've I had to stop buying parts because I forgot what I bought.
Yeah, like I have an engine that I have to finish assembling,
but there's an engine.
There's a cylinder head in my living room still.
There's an intake manifold at sea and supported.
I think it's in the basement.
I think all the control arms are on the couch in the den still.
Like I bought everything.
Yeah.
But I got really tired this winter and it was cold.
And I'm going to put ABS in the car.
Oh, nice. That was the last project that I was working on.
What kind?
It used to be a secret, but now everybody's doing it.
RSX. Well, what would be RSX but the Japanese version?
So DC five integrity bar.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because most everybody uses the BMW that I'm aware of.
Yes. So we get.
I can't use it in Honda Challenge and I'm still trying to revive H1
and unless I change the rule, but I didn't.
So you can't have ABS and H1?
Well, you can't have non Honda ABS and Honda Challenge.
Just because it's Honda Challenge.
I mean, if it was a deal breaker,
I could change that.
But let's try to get some cars out there first.
But in ST, where I was also running,
if you ran MK 60, you can only run it stock or the CS tell flash,
neither, which is great.
It's probably still better than Honda stuff, but I want to try something different.
I know some people are having some weird
like fitment issues using the BMW wheel speed sensors.
And the stuff I just didn't feel like doing or dealing with.
So. So you use Integra.
Suspension parts with the.
ABS sensors.
Yeah. So I'm going to use basically Integra.
Everything.
Wheel speed sensors, most of the wiring harness.
Yes, but no, I'm going to make my own front harness
because the front harness ties into the chassis harness.
But it doesn't work for the new car.
But it's not a big deal.
It's four wires.
There's some power and ground in there, too.
But the issue is that I'm not putting any of the ABS pump components
anywhere where they're supposed to go, because they don't fit well
with the K series, because it go like if I use the stock setup,
it would go on the passenger side frame rail in the engine bay.
There's an engine mount there.
It fits, but it's not great because in the lines have to sneak
between the timing cover and the shock tower.
So I was going to put it underneath in between the shock tower and the firewall
kind of where the battery would go.
OK, I don't have a battery anymore.
And that didn't really work, but it went back and forth and trying to figure it out.
And I thought I had it.
And then the last time I was playing with it, it's not going to work there
because when I did the cage, I went through the firewall with the cage.
So then I had to move the fuse box over
because that was easier than like making an entire new wiring harness
that doesn't have that fuse box, which is also about a 3D printer,
which you can't see. That's a whole other story.
So, yeah, it's in a state of array.
It has no glass. It has some wiring.
It has electric power steering. That's done. Nice.
I did that.
And then.
And then it started to leak sitting in the garage.
And like, how is this possible?
This car is one fluid in it and it's leaking.
What is happening here?
So I had to take the steering rack apart in ways
that people don't take the steering rack apart, but they make parts for it to fix it.
So I did that and then resealed it. It seems to be OK.
And that's where we're at.
It'll get done, I promise.
Are you thinking this year or next year?
I was trying to give myself a date of August.
I wanted to have it done for the August NASA event at New Jersey
because that's my birthday. Oh, wow.
Like that would be epic.
And it's a crossover sort of hunt and challenge boys from down south.
They're coming up.
They came up last year. They had a good time, so they're going to come back.
But I haven't touched it pretty much since.
November.
And there's still a lot of work to do.
So why not?
Do I need to send in Miss Vicki?
I mean, I'll take any help that I get at this point.
Bill, let me off work and I'll be over.
A little bit of a drive.
If anything, I'll be there to hold your hand and cheer you up.
Give you a couple of beers.
I'll take coffee instead of beers.
I don't drink anymore.
Make it make you make you just, you know, delicious food.
And just have a party and as we work on your car.
Sounds like it sounds like a weekend.
Yeah, a lot of people have actually offered.
I just listen.
I just, you know, just for the elephant in the room.
These are very exhausting times.
Right now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I'm just going to leave it at that.
So if there's any any I'm acknowledging, I'm acknowledging the weather.
How about that?
We can acknowledge the weather.
You know, and I forget about the weather sometimes.
Yes.
So.
I think you need to.
I need to have a ladies weekend.
Yes.
It everything is very draining right now.
It is.
It is.
And, and, you know, the enthusiasm for hopping in and doing what we once love
really sometimes is work a little bit.
So.
Yes.
Yeah.
So I'm looking at you and I'm like, I feel you.
Thank you.
I feel you.
I hear you.
And if you need help, I will hop in a car and I will come.
If you want to set up a listen, if you want to set up a weekend with some friends
and just say, Hey guys team.
I have, you know, I have bring an air mattress and a pillow will come.
And we'll all.
Yeah.
Very comfortable.
Couches.
Okay.
We'll have a girl weekend and we'll stick our face in there and we'll just start getting
some stuff done.
I will bill you.
Let me off work.
You're off work.
Okay.
Girl weekend.
We all miss.
We all miss Jackie.
At least that.
Yeah.
I got to get my, my car up and running though.
But as soon as I get that one, which is just like, I got to put a throttle body in it
and I got to pull the transmission and drop it off at the local transmission shop.
Cause you know, and it's nothing against, you know, Zephyr.
Yeah.
Making the face.
She's making the face.
You're not watching.
What happened?
No, nothing.
No, no, I have to pull the transmission.
We can't get fifth.
We cannot get fifth and Zephyr built a transmission.
Listen, I'm not anything about anything.
I don't think it's transmission.
No, I don't know.
So I was going to pull it and run it over to a local shop and I'm like, listen guys,
you don't have to repair anything.
I just think there's something off maybe, but this is one thing I'm going to check
before I try to figure the rest out.
Um, but, uh, and then I just pop it back on and the other thing, the car runs rich.
So I'm replacing the throttle body because I, my feeling is that the throttle body that
we had was bad and I replaced it with a donor car throttle body, which was left exposed
completely.
So that didn't help it.
So, um, Jaime is sending me one and I have one on order at the moment.
I'm going to switch the whole throttle body mechanism out because I don't want to play.
I don't want to play.
I just want to put the whole thing in and drive it and just drive it.
So, but those are the only two things I got to do.
And there's a couple of little nuances and stuff.
I have a question.
Yes.
So what happens when you try to shift to fifth gear?
There's nothing there.
There's nothing there.
It doesn't go in.
No, there's nothing.
There's nothing there.
No throttle.
There's no fifth.
And I do have to figure out what happened to my speed center because that wasn't working
either.
But not speed center, but the wheel speed center.
Yeah, the wheel speed center.
Just those, those simple things.
The car was running super rich, but that was also because it was post accident when I got
it back.
So, you know, we put the whole car back together and first time on track and, you know, you
start realizing a couple of things.
So yeah, you can't test them until you get to the track.
So it finished the race.
It just was running super rich.
No V tech.
No V tech.
Oh.
No V tech, yo.
Got to have V tech, yo.
In a D series, that's really sad.
No, that's rough.
I used to own one of those that didn't have any V tech from the start.
It was rough.
But I don't, I don't think the issues that I'm having with it are that, you know, they
can probably be quickly figured out before I get it back on track again.
But as soon as that's done, I'll come your way.
I'll come your way, Jackie.
You have people who will help you.
I have to round up the troops now.
No.
I think if anything, it's called body doubling.
Oh, I know.
It's just the body double.
More than the help, it's the body double.
Yeah.
You're not talking about one of those silly pillows.
I will say, I've been doing this for so long by myself and having help would be nice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Everybody would love to see you back out there, Miss.
I know.
I won two national championships by myself.
Yeah.
A little bit of help in my 40s would be nice.
Yeah.
Getting old over here.
Not really.
So.
Sounds like a play date for you too.
I think it sounds like a girl weekend is what it sounds like.
Get some people in.
So anyway.
So, so where, where is the car now?
Like how far down the path?
Cage is done.
Paint is done.
Wiring harness is done up to the kick panel.
So all the rear wiring is done minus the ABS stuff because I haven't bought it.
Right.
Because I wasn't sure if I was going to use OEM or make it.
The rear stuff I can use OEM.
So I'm just going to buy an OEM harness, ABS harness and use it.
Let's see.
Subframe is done because the new car is 96 to 2000.
So it's just going to ask that.
Yeah.
So it's a little different to do a case series.
Not the right way, but the easier way.
You swap the subframe to either EG or Integra.
Okay.
Swap the subframe, put the collars in that's done.
Any folks that have an old Honda run into this one where the nuts in the subframe spin
where the lower control arms go apart enough that happens.
So I had all that done before I even put it in the car.
I actually broke the one in the old car too.
So I used subframe for this car.
Well, new used, but so that's done.
The electric power steering is done.
Just like final wiring, but I final wire the car with the switches in.
And that's where I'm at.
I made a bracket to move the fuse box.
I have to make it out of final material, but that's literally just press print on the printer.
Right.
That's takes, I don't know, 20 minutes.
Jackie opens up the garage door, looks at the car and closes the garage door again.
I did it yesterday.
Somebody that I met that didn't know that I had a race car.
And I was like, oh, here's a picture.
And they're like, oh my God, like, don't get excited.
It's junk.
It's not junk, but it's not there yet.
Yeah, right.
Right.
Another car had popped up for sale.
And actually one of our JVAC people bought it and everybody was trying to get me to buy it.
Like, oh, you should buy it.
It's done cage running, driving everything.
But you don't understand.
I'm a long person.
Well, they know better, but I'm like, well, what am I going to do with my car?
I've got way too much money into it that I can't get back.
Right.
There's like five grand in paint and six grand in a cage.
I can't sell a roller for that much money.
No.
And like they went above and beyond doing all the body work.
So we will keep it.
It'll be good to fix it though and finish it.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's going to be fantastic.
When I drove it into the driveway, just like over the apron and into the driveway,
I was like, wow, my other car was really bad.
Really?
Sitting on the floor with no seat and it feels stiffer than my old car.
Wow.
Just pulling in the driveway.
Oh, this is going to be fun.
So just a question.
Do you miss the track?
Yeah.
Do you miss being on the track?
Yeah.
I'm usually okay until I'm there.
I can manage when I'm home because I could shut it off and not see it.
Nobody went to Watkins Glen.
So I didn't go to Watkins Glen and it was a mess.
The weather was bad.
It was okay.
But I'm getting teary.
When I'm at the track.
I'm okay until like all my children go out on track for practice or qualifying.
And then I like start to lose it.
Like, I don't know what to do.
I can't go out.
Oh, no.
I'm like a nervous mom watching their kids go.
And I'm like, I know they're safe, but I don't like it.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
It's not great, but you know, I have to go and do my job.
So I go and do my job.
Yeah.
I just try to stay busy when I'm at the track.
And that helps.
I was like, I don't like going on watching racing in general.
I'm just like, watch.
Give me a laptop to work on or a car to drive.
Yeah.
Watch this race.
I'm not excited about watching this race.
It's a whole lot of head turning back and forth.
Yeah.
I'm like, what are you doing?
I could do that so much better than you.
Well, the spark is still there.
So that's good.
You know.
Yes.
I'll tell you offline about my recent speeding ticket and why the spark is still there.
Actually, it's fun to tell.
I'll tell it on the pod.
Okay.
We got those snow storms that we got.
Yeah.
A little while back to the first one that we got driving to work on Monday.
And I get pulled over in the snow.
For speeding.
For speeding in the snow.
Blizzard.
I'm in a 30 year old Camry and I got pulled over for speeding in the snow.
1180 a.
Imprudent speed for the conditions.
Three points.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
Is it done done?
Oh, yeah.
Like they changed the structure of like the tickets and the points in New York state.
And now you can't fight the points.
Like I could have went to court and fought the ticket and still would have got the points.
Yeah.
Which makes no sense.
But this is what I'm told.
Oh my God.
That's fun.
So yeah.
I don't need a faster car.
That's for sure.
You need a horse and buggy is what you need.
I need to start riding my bicycle to work.
That's what I need to do.
Not in the snow though.
I got bikes that will go in the snow.
Why am I not surprised?
Yeah, I sold one of them.
But yeah, I definitely still miss it.
I haven't been coaching at all just because I haven't had any customers.
I miss that.
Almost as much.
Maybe equally, especially when I'm watching people like screw things up.
I can help you.
Just call me.
I think currently, and this is just my opinion.
I haven't even spoken to Bill about it.
If there's any year that might be worth taking off, it's probably this year.
Oh, for sure.
For sure.
Just for the sheer gas prices that's going to be hitting us.
And all the chaos is going to be hitting us.
It's probably, you know, sticking your toe in the water.
But, you know, probably long term investment on planning might not be the best scenario.
It would be good to get the car out once though this year and then go in the winter with.
Yeah.
This is a build year.
Yeah.
If anything, make peace with, I don't have to go out on track right now because it's
going to be insanely expensive to do so.
I put $175 a diesel in my truck the other day and it didn't fill it.
It wasn't 30 gallons.
Driving to Watkins Glen this weekend would be real expensive.
Right.
Right.
I know I'm supposed to be like, I've only booked as far as.
June.
June.
And I was actually thinking about August, but, you know, to be honest, I think August is going to be terrible.
Well, you got September too.
Yeah.
And I don't even think I'm going to plan that far out.
I think I'm just like, if we have something that is sort of local, that's not an actual circuit.
You know, it just might end up being an HPDE where we can be a little bit, that's more local than anything.
You know, it might even, if anything, it might be a freaking autocross.
Hey, I love a good autocross.
But I'm just saying is just that I, from what I, yeah, but from what I understand is like the last ship out of that area was April.
The last ship we received was April.
Hmm.
Yes.
The last fuel ship is April.
Oh, oh, so it could get bad.
Yes.
So just saying that I don't, I don't really want to kind of push things too far out.
So it might end up going to buy a new bike this year.
Back to racing.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Tangent.
But anyway, you know, this is also the date of what?
May 7th, 2026.
Yeah, maybe we are lucky.
So, so you've got, I think national responsibilities with Honda Challenge.
Yeah.
So, so how is, how is Honda Challenge this year versus prior years and how, how do you think it's going to go?
Hmm.
That's a hard question.
That's why we get paid $0.
Yeah.
It's not hard to answer, but it's hard to answer.
Well, we had our Watkins Glen event three weeks ago, I think it was three, I think it was 34 something like that.
And there were no Honda Challenge cars.
That's the first time that's ever happened since I started driving in 2008.
And we had physically less cars in 2008, but at least we'd have three.
We had zero.
I didn't even go because I had nothing to do, so I stayed home.
Yeah.
So if that's the way the season is starting, I don't think it's going to be great.
I don't think it's going to be great for everybody, all the classes.
Was the overall car count low?
Look like it.
Yeah.
I mean, Watkins Glen, we get the dates that we can.
We can't pick the dates, but it's a rough one to start the season off.
Yeah.
Weather's really dicey at that time.
Yes, the weather, the weekend before it was snowing up there.
Someone I know was up there the weekend before and they had snow on track.
That's the track you want to drive on the snow.
Yeah, I mean, I'm driving the rain.
I don't know about the snow.
I'd probably try it, but I mean, we had a bunch of HPD events ahead of time
so people could have gotten warmed up, but I don't think they did.
That was some of their first weekends because it was a race weekend, but.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm seeing people selling cars.
Nah, Honda's other series of the classes, but.
It's going to be an interesting, interesting year for sure.
You see people selling their race cars due to the economy.
It's the only thing that makes sense.
Yeah.
Seeing a replacement for said car.
Yeah.
Like, oh, I'm going to get rid of this and I'm going to buy a blah, blah, blah, blah.
So.
Yeah.
And business is slow for people.
Yeah.
You know, if they're like their own business owners or whatever.
The economy's bad and business is slow.
First thing that takes a hit is the hobby.
Yes.
This is how much of a hobby it is.
Yes.
Because you can dispose of a lot of disposable income in racing.
But you got to have it to dispose of it.
It needs to be disposable, not disposed of prior to you getting it.
Yeah.
That's right.
No fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we'll see.
Honda Challenge is Honda Challenge.
You know, they're a, they're a thrifty bunch.
Yes.
So down south looks to be okay.
Mid Atlantic had an event.
They've been doing okay.
It's always tough for them to get everybody out just because people are picky about the
tracks they go to, I guess.
Really?
Down south?
Yeah.
Mid Atlantic, and they only go to two tracks.
Well, VIR in South Carolina.
Oh, South Carolina.
Yeah.
Because everything south of VIR is Southeast region.
So CMP is Southeast?
Yeah.
Okay.
I wasn't sure that was kind of the border for me.
Yeah.
Even though like, I mean, VIR is so close.
But yeah, I mean, you know, we're going to see.
But things have been like oddly quiet on the internal front for me.
Honda Challenge wise.
No rules, arguments, brewing?
No.
No.
We got all that sorted out in January.
Yeah.
I think it spilled over in the January, February.
Had some stuff going on, but we got it figured out.
It's been quiet.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And we have some ideas and some things to do, but.
Now I don't think it's the time to be doing them.
So.
Yeah.
Just trying to hang on to the class at this point.
I don't want it to go away.
Yeah, that would, that would not be good.
Hmm.
No.
No.
I wouldn't be excited about it.
So if you're listening, please don't kill my class.
Yeah.
So you were doing work with wind shadow for a little while.
What was going on there?
Just sponsorship.
Oh yeah.
He had a race team.
I mean, he still has a race team.
It's just, you know, all of us that are friends and he made windshield banners.
Oh, I thought you were actually doing some work with them.
I thought you were doing some photography work or anything like that.
Oh, I was going to say, Hey, new talent emerging.
Yeah.
Probably could.
Huh.
Uh-oh.
I just, I just saw a light bulb just kind of shoot right above her head.
I just had a thought.
Anyway, we're going to move past that.
You know, here you go.
Mark that down on a piece of paper, put it in your phone, put it in your notes.
Oh no, I got it.
I got it.
You can shoot right over the fences.
You wouldn't even have to get beyond the fences.
You just peek right over.
Yeah.
Let's move past that.
I needed another thing to get interested in.
Javi's galore.
You don't want to be bored.
Yeah, I won't be bored.
That's for sure.
I don't think you've ever been bored.
I own a house.
How could I be bored?
There's always something to fix.
Yeah.
That's right.
This is true.
Sadly, very true.
I remember growing up, up going,
why don't you just fix it all just the one time and then it'll be done.
It doesn't work that way.
I did not understand that when I was a teenager.
I was like, why don't you just do it?
Just shut up and fix it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause something else will break.
I actually stopped touching my house.
Someone was asking me,
I was working on this plumbing project.
And I kind of paused it.
And they're like, oh, did you finish that?
I'm like, no.
And you're like, oh, why not?
And I said, I got tired of breaking the most expensive thing that I
own.
So I stopped touching it.
And then it doesn't break.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of money.
And every time I touch it, it breaks.
Sounds like it sounds like our race cars too.
Yeah.
Those are easier to fix for me.
I don't know what I'm doing in a house.
I'm guessing I can do the house.
I can't do the car.
Can't do the house.
There's a difference between can't do the house and doesn't want to do
the house.
They're very different.
I think that's me though.
Because everybody's like, if you can build a race car, you can fix
your house.
I'm like, I don't want to fix my house.
There's some things you find joy in or some things you just don't
find joy.
Yes.
I don't find any joy in snaking a pipe.
Which is why it's not done.
I got another bathroom.
I'll just use the other one.
I did try to do the right thing and call a plumber.
And the plumber made it worse.
Really?
They do that sometimes.
Oh, majorly worse.
It was water pouring out of my kitchen ceiling in a place where
there isn't water above it.
Awesome.
Oh, that's awful.
Yeah, that was great.
That was when I stopped touching it.
We have skylights in our kitchen thanks to the plumber.
Unfortunately, our kitchen's on the first floor and we have a second
floor, so skylights are not good.
Yeah.
Well, I think currently I can look through a hole in the kitchen
ceiling into the upstairs bathroom.
Sounds about right.
The good thing was he cut the holes extra big so it was easy for him to
work on and really impossible to fix.
That's how they do it.
She rocked the whole kitchen.
Yeah, pretty much.
So yeah, the person that had our house right before it, he was an
engineer and he really tweaked everything and he was quite clever.
There's like nails for hanging things like everywhere, you know,
but like hooks and things like that.
The plumbing, he did an amazing job, like a whole wall of plumbing.
It's crazy and all the switches.
But anyway, when he, for the upstairs bathroom, I don't know,
this is not racing, but he put a vent over the hole that he had to,
where the plumbing was that goes.
Like an air conditioning vent.
He did an air conditioning vent.
So you look up at the ceiling, you put a piece of paper in there so you
can't see up into it.
But then you have access.
But then you have access, but it looks like an air vent.
Yes.
That's smart.
But when our plumber came in.
He took the small vent hole and made it two very large holes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When my plumber came and decided to take the toilet up off the floor to
not do anything, but make a mess.
He pulled the tile off the floor.
Oh, lovely.
And like, I just set that toilet down and I didn't pull the tile up when I
did it and I don't know what I'm doing.
See, this is racing that does housework.
Right.
Don't buy houses, kids.
Don't do that.
They'll welcome back to plumbers in training.
This old house of Bob Vila.
That's right.
That's right.
Back to racing.
Back to racing.
All right.
So Hannah challenges one thing.
How about devil's pass or whatever that thing's called?
Devil.
I don't know what that is.
They made a from turn 78 to 12.
I haven't driven it yet, but clunky is what it looks like from the
videos that I've seen looks like.
Give us some background.
So New Jersey Motor Sports Park Thunderbolt, everyone that knows the
octopus.
If you've been there, you know the octopus.
So, uh, let's see 56 go through turn seven and then you
start coming to the beginning of the beginnings of eight.
Yeah.
And then instead of that point where you would hit the brakes and
it, and it tightens, you go straight and get rid of the whole
left-hander part of the octopus.
Oh, yeah.
And the S's, right?
Wait.
Uh, yeah.
Most of the S's.
You come out onto that section right before the bridge.
Um, it's, I'm not sure how many.
Oh, yes.
Where the vultures sit.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Two degrees off camber.
Uh-huh.
Um, but I saw a couple of issues just kind of looking at it like,
okay, well, if you overspeed it, you're going to land here or if like
you drop one tire, you're going to land over here.
So we're going to need tires over there.
You know, general stuff.
Um, but everyone that's driven it, when I've seen their video,
it doesn't flow.
It's very clunky.
Uh, so, um, we'll see.
It just looks like it's going to make turn 12 at the buckle.
Um, yeah.
Like if you miss, if you miss it, you're going to be doing.
A million miles an hour.
Well, so here's the thing though, is that new devil's elbow,
or how do they call it?
Um, it's off camber.
So it's not as fast as it looks.
No.
Okay.
No, it's like turn nine at walk.
It's fun.
Oh, okay.
It's a little bit off camber.
So it slows you down.
Um, it'll be good for people that don't like the octopus.
Cause some people don't like it.
Like big fast cars.
Cause you got to slow down.
Poor baby.
Uh, and especially with the new turn one being so fast.
The average speed is real high.
So, I don't know.
It's another layout.
It's interesting.
I'm not looking forward to it.
I would like to try it.
And what do they call the series?
It's, it's devil's pass, I think, but it might be something else.
They were supposed to be more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, let's not.
Let's, let's go to lightning New Jersey motor sports park.
Let's spend some money on some exit curbing at lightning.
That would be nice.
Like turn one.
So we could stop dragging frame rail or ending up in the inside title.
Yes.
Or at least, you know, bulldoze the ground.
So it's not a, uh, rumble strip.
I like the rumble strip, but just.
No, no, no.
The grass when you're off.
Oh, after wait.
Oh yeah.
It's just like, you know, I've been to frame rail out there once.
Yeah.
And it's gotten worse.
Yeah.
I didn't hit a thing.
I hit a, went off and hit like a bumper or whatever.
And the ruts, the mud ruts.
Yeah.
And the left frame rail was a few degrees up.
Yeah.
I mean, off a turn five on lightning is tough, but off turn one, it's.
Yeah.
It's bad.
It's bad.
I often underdrive that corner because I don't want to pay to fix whatever
I'm going to break off it.
There's some wisdom there.
Yeah.
Uh, there's other ways to take that corner.
That's fast too.
So, um, I know they want to repay it and I'm bleeding.
Please don't repay it.
Cause the new surface on Thunderbolt was terrible.
Well, they don't have to repay it the same way.
Well, they're going to repay it with the same company and they're going to use
the same material.
So it's going to suck.
I guess it's going to be the same way.
Yeah.
Like quality wise, I'm sure it's okay.
Like it's not falling apart, but it was very tire specific and it hasn't
really changed.
Yeah.
I was kind of thinking it might season in, but so far I haven't seen it.
Nope.
I haven't seen it.
Haven't heard it.
We've figured out how to deal with it.
But yeah, so hopefully they know.
It was kind of sad.
That was my favorite track.
Thunderbolt.
Yeah.
Like of the two of them.
I like them both, but Thunderbolt was.
It's more fun.
It's more fun.
We're still partial to pit race.
So you're in better position than us.
Well, pit race is my actual favorite track.
Okay.
So we're on the same boat.
On the planet.
Yes.
That's sad.
Yeah.
I heard somebody was making a collection for eye racing to go finish it on their
system.
Oh, that'd be great.
I know.
At least we get to do it.
Fake life.
Yeah.
I can finally fix my brakes on and turn one.
I'm worried about breaking over the crest.
Yeah.
That's that's one turn.
I never felt like, yeah, I nailed it.
That's all there is.
Nope.
Oh, I got it wrong every single time.
I could see it.
Exactly.
It's like, how wrong am I?
Yeah.
And then all of a sudden you're like, why is there a football field more of room that
I could do?
I tried it once.
The car didn't like it breaking over the.
Over the crest.
Yeah.
I had a couple of diamonds come out the first time I did that.
That was the last time I did that.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you, you, you raced long enough.
Did you race it when that was.
Beaver run?
Yeah.
When it didn't have the lower section, it just went across.
I did not.
I was, I was wondering what that would be like.
Zephyr raced it that way.
That was, if you ever find any very early Honda challenge stuff.
They raced a beaver run a lot.
Do you know what you mean, Vicki?
No.
So you remember turn one at pit race?
Yes.
It used to kind of go straight.
It's still there.
Well, it's not there anymore, but.
Yeah.
So you would go through turn one.
A little bit.
You know, when you go through turn one and there's like some
extra pavement that you could use on the exit.
That's where you would turn right.
For beaver run.
And you would go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They called it the short course when they re repaved it and then
changed the name from beaver run to pit race.
Yeah.
I kind of like, I like the stuff they added though.
So I don't know that I'd like that.
Yeah.
I just can't believe they sold it to a data center.
Unbelievable.
The, the amount that they sold it for was finally released.
Yeah.
It was less than I thought.
I know 50 million.
Yeah.
For the amount of money that they were putting into the track at
time of.
Not sale, but kind of before all that went down.
Like a figure 50 million wouldn't even get your money back.
Cause they were building new garages.
You know what they were turning it into something like Jersey.
They were doing little condos.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's fine.
Yeah.
I would, I would have played smaller lotteries if I would have
known it was only 50 million.
I was only playing the big ones.
See.
Damn it.
It's gotta be, uh, gotta be more informed.
I know.
It's terrible.
No.
Sad face.
I know.
Sad face.
Sad face.
So.
Yeah.
So what is your favorite track to race?
Just in general, it was pit, but so far to jerseys is your favorite
ones.
Um.
Yeah.
I really liked road Atlanta.
I would like to go back to road Atlanta with a car with power.
Yeah.
That back stretch can get a little lonely if you're a low on power.
Little bit.
It's just like.
Yeah.
I was there in a B 16 that made no horsepower.
I mean, it made what it was supposed to, but no torque.
Cause it was a problem.
Um, but.
There's a lot of, it's really, really fast and has a lot of nuance.
Mm hmm.
The first thing I did when we got there was figure out why everybody crashes
in turn one.
Turn one's hard.
It's not.
If you walk down and look at it.
Yeah.
Maybe that was it.
Well, we didn't do a walk there.
It was, uh, when we were there, it was 34 degrees and raining the entire
weekend.
That was lovely.
Oh, that's fun.
Yeah.
No.
It was no fun.
That's great.
Yes.
We did that weekend, that car barrel rolled down 12.
No, different, different weekend.
It was, uh, we had a little bit of snow, but nothing.
Okay.
Barrel on 12.
Somebody barrel, barrel, roll the car down 12.
It was, I think the lemons, right?
It was no good.
No way.
Um, have you ever thought about grid life?
I can't afford grid life.
Yeah.
To travel is I love to travel.
I love to sit on the highway all night long.
This is true.
Long Island to Laguna.
Yeah.
I, they wanted me to race grid life.
Um, in the inception of grid life.
And I was like, your closest track is 10 hours from my house.
Yeah.
Cause they didn't have a lime rocket.
Yeah.
They didn't have it raised.
Mid Ohio.
Mid Ohio is closest.
Right.
Yeah.
Mid Ohio is 10, 11 hours from my house.
Yeah.
This is true.
I can raise here.
I was thinking like, oh yeah, I was thinking lime rock.
Yeah.
If I raised grid life, I'd have to raise all of it.
It's a lot of travel.
It's a lot of money.
Uh, all the paint that I just did in the inside of my car,
we get ruined because I have to rebuild how I'm building the car.
A grid life car, especially a GLTC car is very specific.
It's it.
Yes.
Everyone.
Everyone I know that wanted to go to grid life.
I'm like, you're going to do okay, but you can't win.
No, no, no.
Okay.
And they all tried it for a couple of years and they get to this
point, especially if you're in like a golden era Honda,
where it's either get the saw all out and cut it up.
So you can put 18s on it.
Like Eric did.
Yep.
Or just not ever win because you're not going to win unless it's a
random invert.
And he's probably going to run you down in a random invert anyway.
Yeah.
Well, Eric, Eric probably sits as far back as you do now.
He does.
If he had stock pedals in his car, he'd drive it because he has a
pedal box.
He's tall.
He's tall, but he's tall.
Yeah.
But yeah, if he put stock pedals in his car, I could absolutely
drive it.
Probably perfect.
I know.
But yeah, it's just, it's for these cars specifically.
It's a very specific build and it's not what I'm doing.
It's not cheap.
It's not cheap.
I would not build my car for good life.
I would build something else.
And quite honestly, I would just go by Corvette and run in GLGT.
Yeah.
And save yourself a whole lot of headache, unless I really feel like
engineering something, which I'm good at, but.
So would you, would you build your, your current car or more for
training or racing?
No, it's going to be a race car.
It's definitely going to be a race car.
I feel bad for the first person that puts a mark on it.
They'll probably feel worse about it than I will.
You hear that?
You hear that Dylan?
Keep your markers away.
But yeah, like I'm also limited in garage space as
to what I build, which is why I'm building the car that I'm
building, because I was going to build something else.
Had it all planned out.
We knew what we were going to do.
It's going to be great.
Found some donor donor chassis.
And then I walked out in a garage with the tape measure and I
measured from the door to the wall, which was the length of the
car that I wanted to build.
And that wouldn't work.
No.
So we had to change plans.
I was like, we're building another civic.
Here we go.
Yes.
Is that a secret car or is that a future car?
It's not a future car because it won't fit in a garage.
I was going to build in a cord.
Oh, that's much bigger.
It's yeah.
Yeah, it's bigger than I thought.
It's longer than a Mustang.
Because a Mustang would fit by a couple of inches.
What year?
I'd have to look again.
I don't remember.
Is it relatively recent?
Yeah, like 2015 or something like that.
Yeah, I was going to build the last upper and lower, lower control
arm a cord, which is like 2012, I believe.
Don't quote me on that, but I think it was 2012.
I was going to build one of those with a J series.
Big wheels, all the jazz for wherever I wanted to drive it.
ST on a challenge.
And a whole bunch of tricks up my sleeve for that chassis already.
And then I was like, I won't fit.
Can't build it.
Can't leave the door open, right?
No.
I live in an okay neighborhood, but I'm not accurate in neighborhood.
Eventually and take whatever's in there.
Exactly.
Or the cats will just live in the garage.
That wouldn't be bad.
Yeah, so for the time being, it's civics and things of that size.
Even the new civics are big though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought about building an eighth gen just to like prove my point.
I don't care.
Let everybody else figure it out.
You just want to make con feel bad.
I know what you're doing.
I don't have to make con feel bad.
Con looks at my face.
He already feels bad.
Every time.
It's okay.
I got through to him.
The last episode that I recorded with him, he had this little monologue.
I thought I was going to cry and fall off my chair.
I was like, I finally got you.
It was about like how much work you've got to do and like dampers and all this other stuff.
But he finally got it.
Yes.
When are we going to buy good shocks for your car next year?
Well, shoot.
All right, we're close.
But he's getting there.
Who's getting there?
He just broke his whole everything.
So he's got to buy a whole new everything.
What do you mean broke?
Remember those bolts came loose.
Bolts came loose on the flywheel.
Took out the transmission.
Took out the starter.
Probably took out the clutch.
That was brand new.
Everything.
Just take it all out through on the garbage.
Start again.
No.
And the engine is cheap.
Yeah, the engine is 1100 bucks.
The transmissions are not cheap anymore.
They might be cheaper to buy a whole car for the transmission.
No way.
Yeah.
You could probably find a hammered eighth gen for like three grand and make some money back.
And have body panels to spare.
You have body panels and a K20 to sell.
Someone stupid like me will buy it for the solar head.
When did that happen?
After their second race.
Yeah.
He killed the clutch.
This year.
Yeah.
This year.
Yeah.
You were on the tech thread.
I know.
I get a lot of tech threads.
So I just.
Yeah.
I just holy cow off the flywheel.
Yeah.
So it's a common problem,
but he thinks he just didn't torque the bolts or didn't tighten them or whatever the case.
Like didn't tighten them enough.
They're very specific with length.
So it was a buzz saw.
It could have been.
Yeah.
So it got loose.
It didn't come all the way off, but it got loose and started moving around.
I think it broke some of the bolts in the crank in the nose of the crank.
But it like ate the transmission up.
The transmission is the.
Expensive part in that whole deal.
So.
I'd be able to get a bell housing and swap everything over.
That's a possibility.
I think they're the same between five and six B, but I'm not positive.
So that could be like a cheap way to cheaper way to fix it.
I think it took out the bell housing.
Didn't it?
Yeah.
So if you can find another one and swap everything over.
Oh yeah.
Just take everything.
The case would still be good and everything internally should be fine.
Maybe check the main shaft to make sure it's not bad.
Right.
It didn't, it didn't look like it was inconsequential.
What was done there?
No, this is a rough deal.
Definitely a rough deal.
It happened to one of my friends because he used the wrong flywheel bolts.
They got tight.
They torqued up, but they were like a little too long.
So once you drove it and it got hot and things started to expand and contract,
the bolts got loose and it marred the nose of the crank.
Ooh.
Yeah.
So instead of putting a crank, you just bought an engine.
It's a good part of the case series.
If it's a 24 it's cheap.
Right.
Yeah.
If it's two liter, they're not cheap, which doesn't make any sense.
Is it just a volume thing like quantity?
No.
They're just for some reason in all the K20s or, you know, 5000 dollars
and a K24, like a good three low K24 is 1100 bucks.
They make more power.
They make more torque.
Or they make about the same power where they make more torque.
The 20.
The 24.
No, the 24.
Okay.
Hmm.
I'm on my second one.
So when are you going to be back out at the track?
Next.
Any track?
Um, I don't have my schedule in front of me, but the next May 18th.
Oh, I can get a hug.
I should probably start making some arrangements for that.
That's in a week.
Yeah.
Right.
Are you going to say you guys, you guys should be a, you're going to be at NJMP.
You're going to be at NASA.
If it's a race weekend and my Hannah challenge gang got off their butts and fixed their cars.
Wow.
We're going to be there.
That's right.
I got to get my car fixed this upcoming week.
It's not running.
Or just bring the other car.
Miss Mia is on the wait list for, uh, um, HPD.
Miss Mia is in the car now.
Yep.
This is going to be a long podcast episode.
What do you mean?
When did this happen?
She's done it once.
She liked it.
Now she has to go back.
I said, okay.
Yep.
I thought she had no interest.
Things change.
No, she had no interest being at the track.
It's different now that she's in a car.
That's fair.
I feel that to myself.
Yeah.
Because we were bringing her when she was like 10.
Yeah.
And you're just hanging out watching your parents do whatever.
Yeah.
It's nothing for them to do.
And they're like, you know, she did that for a couple of years and she's like, you know,
mom, I'm bored.
But we took her out to pit and, uh, and we put her on the track.
We put her on the track with dad, mind you, right?
I was, I was coaching somebody else.
No, that was coaching somebody else.
Instructing.
Instructing.
And she had another instructor in and, uh, she had gone off.
And of course dad, as, as our family tradition goes to honks and a middle finger as you pass
them, whoever goes off.
And she's like, that was my dad.
Nice.
There you go.
And she says, and of course the guy kind of was over.
He goes, are you okay?
Cause it was like the first time she had gone off.
She goes, yeah, but my dad saw me.
The only thing that bothers me and I'm like, that's a good attitude.
She was afraid about the car.
She was more concerned about dad seeing her go off because of the middle finger and the
double honk.
Okay.
All right.
So starting to turn into even more of a family affair.
Yeah.
Little bit.
Okay.
So yeah.
So if you want to go with her, you know, you're more than welcome.
We'll bring a car.
You fit.
I haven't ridden in the right seat in, I don't know.
I saw griffin 40s at all.
I stopped riding the right seat when I started racing and that was 2008.
Yeah.
I can see, I can see her crawling into Mia's car.
Well, maybe we'll drive a different car though.
Yeah.
Like Bill Griffin did just kind of like folded himself up into the car and
don't hit anything hard.
Let's go.
Yep.
He looked like a praying man that's being born from an egg.
You know, it was like,
some cars over the years.
Yeah.
We'll be fine.
Yeah.
She's weight-listed though.
Okay.
Yeah.
She's weight-listed.
I mean, that's good for her.
That's good for us.
It means we got cars coming, which is good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, a lot of big ones.
So, I mean, a lot of first levels.
Her front weight-listed too.
All right.
So I'll be there Saturday morning.
I'll drive down Saturday morning.
Okay.
We'll be there Friday night.
So stop by.
It's hard to get off weight-list.
It really is.
Yeah.
For a first one.
They don't, they, they put the money in.
They rarely like not go, but.
Right.
She's borderline HPD too,
but I wanted her to do HPD one more time.
Okay.
So.
You're right.
Ms. Vicki's going to be there.
I'm going to be there.
It'll be fun.
Yeah.
I'm going into level four.
You've been in level four.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did the, I did the Ross Bentley Clinic,
which was a freaking blast.
I got to tell you.
Of course.
It was Billy.
That was insane.
That was absolutely.
Insane.
Fill me in.
Well, so we went to the track,
Pine View and.
You know, Pine View.
Pine View was a very tight track.
It's narrow.
Very.
It's narrow and it's tight and it's not big at all.
But that has a perk too, because you're working on.
Technical thing more than your speed and everything like that.
So I appreciate it after the fact, but he's like, I want you to race.
This entire track.
And again, tight, tight turns everything.
Of course, no breaks, no breaks.
You're not allowed to use breaks.
Yeah.
I never did a no breaks drill.
And I'm like, okay, it was easier than I thought it would be.
It really was.
Until I came in and he's like, okay, now go one gear higher.
And I'm like, oh crap.
Go back.
Of course I did go off, but that, that was when.
Not Alexa.
Alyssa, Alyssa, that Alyssa was not too far.
She was probably within an hour drive.
And that's where she came and did the reference lap.
But, uh, yeah, I mean, the drills were insane and they were intense,
but they were good.
They were, they were, they were like really good.
And that's when they introduced, do data.
But, um, yeah, that's when I got the award of the better drive a slow car
fast and a fast car slow, you know, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The first time I did a no breaks drill, I think my car might have been
broken or something.
For some reason I wasn't driving, but I hopped into a friend's car.
And I was like, oh, this is going to be fun.
Let me ride with you.
He goes, yeah, come out and Charlie greenhouse.
Shout out to Charlie greenhouse is out in, I don't know what car.
And we're walking Glen doing a no breaks drill.
I'm sitting in like a three 30 BMW and Charlie is swerving white line
to white line down the front straight, trying to scrub speed because
he's not using the brakes.
Right.
And then he disappears through turn one and we never saw him again
until a session over.
I was mind blown.
We couldn't catch him using the brakes.
Wow.
Yeah.
Wow.
I needed to sit down and think about what happened.
That's an astronomical amount of speed that he was carrying in a car
that was not faster than the car that we ran.
So it's definitely good to learn.
The other thing that they did on that drill, and of course we did a
podcast after it, and I'm trying to remember all the drills because
it was over a year ago, I think it was about a year ago.
Right, Bill.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's getting close, but not yet.
Yeah.
But we end up doing a track walk, unlike any track walk I had ever done
before.
Well, you did a track walk with Peter Krause and Ross Bentley.
It's obviously.
Right.
Right.
Right.
I mean, the information that I had gotten and what to look for,
not just points on a track and not just transitions
sticky spots, but there were a lot of telltale signs that they had us
looking for on the track, like break marks, skid marks.
They had us, you know, just, um, separations, just minor separations
in the track that might go down the middle of transition.
And just the details of what we went around on.
I just like, these are deeds, like there's track looks I did.
And it's like, okay, look at the line.
If you point here, you can kind of make straight line that way.
No, the detail that they went into just to decipher a track, turn around and
look at it this direction.
I'll look at it that direction.
Right.
Look at it backwards.
Look at it backwards because it looks, it's different.
You'll be able to see the inclines differently.
You'll be able to see the, you know, the technicals differently.
And it made such a difference doing that.
And then going through the track.
I mean, by the end of that weekend, by the end, they have something in there
they referred to as the catcher's mitt.
And it is a long straight in the back.
And then there's like an incline.
And then right after the incline, it's a, a right hand turn,
but they have a nice wide, like if you have to do a wide drift,
there's plenty to go around.
Okay.
But it got to the point when I was racing that car,
when I was just slamming into the catcher's mitt,
almost like a ball was being caught.
And that way you were starting to feel, you were starting to feel,
and I'm, I'm trying to get the right terminology for it.
But it almost felt like being, um, I don't know what happens.
The compression.
It was like, I felt the compression.
Yeah.
And it got to the point when I was trying to figure out how fast I can go
and then hit the compression, you know, feel the compression before it went up
and then feel the shift and then the turn, um, on that slope.
And I never went off on that side.
I only went off on a different part because I couldn't get it right.
But it was crazy.
It would, by the end of that weekend, it was just so intense.
It was so amazing.
It was so freaking amazing.
I love it.
That's great.
You know, but again, you know, just working on in general, just working on
breaking down the language from what I interpreted the language to be
to what actual racers interpret the language to be now.
So these are those little nuances I was working on.
But yeah, that was, that was an intense.
And then that was the weekend also because that was the AIM system that I
have in my car.
Is it the AIM system that I have?
Yes.
Yeah.
Where they were able to pull it so I can see video and data at the same time.
And that suddenly all made sense.
And I'm like, now I'm fully interested in data.
Full on interested in data now.
Like I can see it now.
Nice.
Yeah.
You kind of can't go wrong with anything that has Ross Pitley attached to it.
No.
And we had the short weekend.
But yeah, the long weekend, we had such a great group in ours.
Like our group was a fun group.
I don't think the next group was as fun.
I think that they had a lot of fun.
I mean, there was people that flew in from Mexico from, they had their
car shipped from California over.
Yeah.
They had quite a, quite a few people that kind of came in.
And our group was really, was a lot of fun.
A lot of jokes.
Just a good group.
I would do it again.
I would do it again.
Of course.
It's Ross.
No, I don't want to work with Ross anymore.
What do you think, Ross?
I know.
I'm sure there's somebody out there that's not working with Ross anymore.
No, that was the best gift.
I gotta say.
I know all that he can teach me.
He didn't know.
Said no one ever.
No, but you know, there was like some of the things that I was asking.
I was like, you know what?
I just, like I said, I don't want this to seem like a stupid question, but
here's my stupid question.
You know.
Oh, no, I stand.
So yeah, it was good.
Walking the track for the nuances is huge.
Yeah.
They were just like, you know, look at where everybody's tires are.
Look at the tire marks just in general.
Look at the wear marks.
Look at, you know, if, uh, cause sometimes the, on the track,
they have the, uh, the seam that goes down the center of the track,
then they told you how to even manipulate that they should.
Yeah.
There's just so many things that I really never took into consideration
that moves so fast beyond you, you know?
Yeah.
So it was, uh,
And you can see some of these things now that you've seen them statically
while you're walking and you can see it when you drive.
Oh, that's the thing that I saw on this point that was good.
Let me put a tire on.
Oh, it's good.
Yeah.
Put a tire on it, stuff like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of technicals, a lot of technicals.
I, uh, we were at Watkins Glen one weekend and I think I drove up on,
I did drive up Friday, like midday, cause I didn't have anything to do
because I don't have a car that works.
And one of my friends was up there getting his stuff together.
And he's like, the car's doing something weird in turn five.
He's explaining what's happening.
And we kind of went over what he tried.
I said, let's go on the trackwalk and look.
I have an idea.
Let's go see if it's a surface.
Right.
So we go out and we look in turn five and like where were you,
where the car was doing this thing coming into the, coming into five
and the car was placed about here and you can't see anything.
But if you put your foot there, you can feel that there's an angle
change in the surface.
And I'm like, you're, that's what you're feeling.
And he's like, are you sure?
I go walk sideways.
So like your feet are like pointing down the, cause it's like,
a lot of camber in the track.
So it's pointing inside and kind of scoot along.
And it's like, yeah, you can feel it.
And like, took a little angle finder on my phone.
It's like, there's like a three degree difference.
Yeah.
You can't see it with your eyes.
No.
No.
But you can feel it with your foot and you're feeling it in the car.
It's those little nuances that are crazy.
I know.
And you know, just going through when somebody does a track walk
and explaining the sensations of what your car would feel at the same
time and how it should feel, not just where to point the nose.
You know, and I've, and I've my, and I'm not saying that people
weren't explaining it to me, but I think at the time when I was doing
track works, that was all that I had the capacity to understand until,
until the learning goes further on and you start feeling what it's
supposed to feel in your seat and what you feel in your tires.
Because the longer that you drive, the more you start besides the
technical part of it and where you're supposed to put anything.
There's a lot of sensation that, that you, you drive by sensation.
At the same time, you start to understand because as I always tell
new drivers when they get into our car, you're not sitting in a car.
You're having a car strapped onto you.
So you become part of the car.
And that's when you start feeling everything and you start paying
attention to just the little, the very little motions that the car takes.
You can start, you feel when something's wrong with your car.
You feel the front, you feel the back.
You can feel when something's wrong.
You don't know what's wrong, but you can certainly feel it.
And that's what I miss about driving.
That little nuance.
Yeah.
This shock feels like it's two clicks from where it's supposed to be.
And that doesn't make sense, but let me check.
Sometimes the knobs migrate.
I put my tires on my daily and I needed to put a spacer in the front
to clear the calipers, whatever it's fine.
And like it feels a little free.
I know what I did, but it shouldn't have mattered.
And then I looked and like the front wheel track is statically wider than the rear.
So I put a five little spacer on it and made it really big.
People like you, how hard are you driving your daily?
Not very hard, but I could just feel it.
It's a little bit used to be spacer in the back to tone it down.
But I missed that in the car.
The tweaking.
You missed the tweaking.
Like new parts or a new setup track car are always my favorite.
As much as I hated the new Thunderbolt, it was something new to do.
And I found so many things about that track.
And I was talking to Mike about it, Waller, because he works at the track.
Right.
And he was like mind blown and he relayed my info to like whoever at the track.
And they're like, we haven't heard that from anybody.
Really?
Well, you can go walk out on the track and see it.
I said, there's a bump in turn one that no one's complaining about because everyone's
missing the apex.
But if you drive it right, there's a bump that's like 11 feet before the drainage
crate that's there that people also don't know is there.
You're right.
I wish my camera was working that day.
I hit that curve and was full tilt sideways.
Wow.
This is terrible.
They redid a lot of the exit curbs and the exit curb in six.
You can use it to turn the car.
I think maybe one person figured out.
If you just drive out there with lateral load in it, it's so choppy.
It just rotates your car.
You just don't put any steering in.
So you overspeed the corner on purpose.
And when you get out there, it just turns the car and then it drives back on track.
No, for those that can't see this, this Jackie is just like turning like a jackhammer.
That's what it feels like.
Okay.
It works.
The Jersey tracks are fun tracks.
The Jersey tracks are fun tracks, but yeah, they are.
I mean, Watkins Glen is like that too.
And I've driven all these tracks for so long.
I've driven New Jersey Motorsports Park, both of them since the day they were built.
We were the second group to race at Thunderbolt when it was constructed.
In my brain, it looks totally different.
I've actually watched the video.
It looks totally different.
It's a mess.
And still, if I met one of these tracks and somebody's like, you want to go for a track walk?
I'm like, yep, let's go.
I'm thinking new.
They put a patch here or this or that or seam sealer, whatever.
I love the seam sealer.
Seam sealer is such a trick.
Is it?
Because sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad and it changes with temperature.
So the seam sealer that used to be in the second half of the octopus at Thunderbolt was ridiculous.
You just pick the throttle up early.
Like you were going to drive clean off the track and you would hit the seam sealer and not move the wheel.
And the car would just yank itself back on line.
And then it took it out.
We all drove off the track.
Everybody was expecting it.
Where's my backstop?
But when it got hot, it would get like greasy.
Kind of work, but not really.
Stuff like that.
Seam sealer in the rain is generally a no-no.
Unless it's some wild special stuff, stay off it when it's wet because it's slippery.
Whatever paint they use at Charlotte in the rain, just don't.
Same as Atlanta.
I have that on video.
I almost spun crossing the start finish line.
Oh, nice.
I almost crashed into the bridge at Rhode Atlanta on the first lap.
Oh, lovely.
And it wasn't raining.
But it had rained the day before.
Fun times.
It's the paint and whatever the surface is like under it.
I think they put the paint down.
I was just like, I'm not in the car with a lot of horsepower.
And yet I'm still, you know, 20 degrees off line.
Just going across the start finish line, which is dead straight.
I was going to say it's dead straight at CMB.
Jeez.
How was the kink for you?
At Charlotte.
Charlotte didn't bother me too much.
Oh, Charlotte.
Charlotte, yeah.
No, not Rhode America or CMB, either one.
Yeah, I think it's CMB.
CMB is a lot easier than Rhode America from what I hear.
Well, I want to see what they're doing at one lap because they're going to Rhode
America, but they're not doing the kink.
I heard they were doing the bus stop or something.
I don't know.
Are they putting a chicane in there?
I don't know.
I think it goes around it.
Oh, I didn't know you could do that.
That's an expensive day in some of those cars.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know what though?
Hot off the presses.
Codename Jaime has a question.
Okay.
It just came across.
I don't know how.
Okay.
Yeah.
Codename Jaime.
Codename Jaime.
Okay.
We have a, we have a secret way of coming up with these code names that nobody has pierced
yet.
Okay.
Also, because spirit is no longer, I don't think we'll ever see Jaime again.
Well, well, the true Jaime.
Yes.
Because, you know, he not only uses auto zone brake pads, but he only flies spirit.
Spirit.
Yes.
And then pays extra to fly the one he should have reserved anyway.
But, but this is Codename Jaime.
So this is Codename Jaime.
No idea who this could be.
Okay.
How would she coach someone on improving on one corner at a time?
How would I coach someone on improving at one corner at a time?
I mean, I can.
It's like, why not solve more than one problem at a time?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, well, if we have the time to do so, then we can do that.
Uh, if it's a weekend, you know, like a two day or we can work on one corner at a time,
obviously depending on how many quarters we have.
Don't they compound though?
Cause like if you get the one preceding it, you know, it's yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And if we're going to work on one corner at a time, we're going to start from the last
one and work backwards.
Yeah.
Cause otherwise you're going to end up going fast into a corner that you weren't expecting.
Um, but one corner at a time, I can do it.
If that's what somebody wants, they can do it.
Would it be better to do one corner at a time?
Like you get unlimited budget and limited time.
It depends.
Like if I'm doing one corner at a time, we're looking for like, we're past the low hanging
fruit or past the compressor break zones.
We're now looking at, Oh, if we turn like nine knobs on the dampers and change all the tire pressure,
we're going to pick up two miles an hour men's speed.
That's when I start working on one corner at a time.
What, what if we go with, cause you know, code name Jaime wasn't exactly clear with
it, with their question, but let's, let's assume that, you know, they're, they're on,
let's just say it's, it's lightning.
And they're doing everything right except for five or maybe the light bulb, you know,
or maybe one, but they got all the other ones locked in.
Would, would you, would that change how you would work on one corner at a time?
It would.
Um, yeah, that's, that's more along the lines of how that would work of like, Oh,
I'm struggling in this corner.
Everything else is good.
Look at the data.
Oh yeah.
Everything is good.
You are struggling in this corner.
Yes.
Yes.
You are sucking in this corner.
Well, and that, if that's the case, it's going to be something easy.
Like if you're driving everything else, good, you're, you know, up to speed, you're driving
well, you're just goofing something.
And if you're at thunder, lightning, you're probably driving two wrong.
Yes.
Um, you would drive five a little bit wrong.
You would drive the light bulb a little bit wrong, depending on the car.
I would tell you what to do.
Blow your mind, but you're most likely driving to completely wrong.
I'm not going to mention it on the podcast.
You got to pay me for that information.
Can, could we, could we get you to solve the, the eternal debate that's been on the podcast?
And we have, we have not had a consensus.
Yeah, I guess.
Light bulb.
V.
Diamond, whatever you want to call it.
Or an arc.
Uh, just as rough clarification, what are we driving?
Uh, something middle of the road, you know, to 250 horsepower, you know, maybe, maybe a real world drive car.
Arc.
You do the arc.
Yeah.
Cut the distance.
I just, I just, it doesn't look like it's set up for a diamond.
And I've got people who will argue me too.
I'm, I'm blue, not only they're blue, but I'm blue.
I'm like,
I've seen people do it.
It's very hard to do because the corner is so long.
Yeah.
Most cars don't like doing those really sharp.
Fast turns at speed that you're doing there.
Well, you know, if you're drifting like she has a tendency to do.
Oh, that's only in the snow.
That walk ins.
Was it walking to your drifting?
It was walking.
So the light bulb has a bump on the way in unless you take it wide.
Real wide.
If you take it wide to miss the bump on the way in, you can't diamond it because it, I mean, you could, but it would be some really stupid.
Be like a boomerang more than a diamond.
Yeah, it wouldn't really work.
The corner is too long for that.
Similarly to like in the octopus where people try to start from the outside and work your way again.
Well, if you can be on the inside and be flat, why not be on the inside and be flat?
Just cut the distance.
Especially with that lovely curbing they have on the inside.
Yeah.
And especially with cars real fast because then you can use some of that curbing to your advantage in the brake zone.
I wish they made it longer, but they didn't.
Yeah.
I was like, oh, maybe they, no, they didn't crap.
But yeah, I would love for someone to have data that shows that a diamond in that corner would be faster.
I think you'd have to have an astronomical amount of horsepower and a car that doesn't turn worth a dollar.
Yeah, like a real point and shoot car.
Yeah, like real point and shoot because most cars you can run into that corner without using the brakes.
Yeah.
The only, the only cars that come to mind are like a 60s Cobra or, you know, some type of like classic muscle car.
It's like, I can't turn, but boy, can I do quarter mile.
I could scoot off the corner.
But I mean, if you're racing somebody and you do that, you're done.
Yeah.
Because if you're in front of me and you do that and I've seen people try it in the early days of that track, I just drive underneath them.
Yeah.
Okay.
Have fun trying to drive through me on the exit.
Yeah.
I'm not going to let you by, by the way.
I would pass them.
Yeah.
It takes so long to get all the way up to the top of the track.
Have fun.
Okay.
So Miss Jackie's on the non diamond kind of way.
Who's on the diamond?
You know, I don't, I don't like to besmirch the reputations of some of our prior podcasts.
For that, you'd have to turn into the only fans garage.
Hey now.
This has been a great episode.
I'm going to catch up with y'all.
And I think the dinner.
All right.
Well, post-post podcast, you guys got to get your schedules together.
Miss Jackie.
If people do want to reach out to you to coach, which we would highly recommend.
Don't.
Don't bother.
Not yet.
Nobody's going to call.
I give up.
I don't care anymore.
Don't text me or email me and ask me questions.
If you're not paying, don't bother.
And most people aren't.
So.
Well.
All right.
Well, Miss Jackie, we are going to, to have to send in the Miss Vicki mechanic
queen that she is.
She will bring all my knowledge and skill, which is easy.
Fits in a very, very small bag.
Very small.
Does it fit in an attache case?
No.
It could fit in an attache case that fits inside the attache case that fits inside the
attache case.
Okay.
I can, I can go get great food and parts if that's what you need.
But the.
Tools.
I love to go buy tools.
Just tell me how we need one of them.
Oh, let me go find you one.
That's what I do for a living.
I got lots of tools.
Yep.
So thank you for coming on again.
We bother you every now and then we may bother you more though.
I appreciate it.
Drag you back in kicking and screaming.
Give you the, give you the excitement of racing again.
Yay.
You know that like the old, the old GM cars, it'll, it'll be like body by
Fisher, just spelled Fisher our way.
Not that way.
It'll be fine.
Oh, I thought you were going to do a Pontiac reference.
No.
Excitement.
Maybe.
Well, we'll see.
I think, I think the, the build will be exciting if you're driving.
That's for sure.
Oh, it's going to be pretty, pretty wild.
Yeah.
So it's an H1.
H1 ST4.
Bouncing forth.
Since there's so many H1s in the Northeast, right?
Right.
We wrote the rules too.
We didn't even talk about that, but maybe I'll have to come back and talk
about that on another episode.
Future episodes.
That'd be awesome.
We'll have to do one after the work weekend too.
Yeah.
That would be fantastic.
Thanks for coming on, Miss Jackie.
Thank you, Miss Jackie.
I look forward to seeing you this weekend.
Next weekend.
Next weekend.
Next weekend.
Yep.
It's going to be fun.
Thank you.
Okay.
Goodbye.
About this episode
Miss Jackie returns as the hosts’ direct coach for their NJMP Gridlife training team, and the conversation quickly turns into how small misunderstandings and track feedback translate into faster driving. They compare reference laps, talk throttle timing (“full throttle” confusion), and explain how AIM telemetry enables real-time adjustments. The episode also dives into chassis and setup troubleshooting—alignment drift, subframe movement, and even a cracked frame rail—plus the practical realities of building, recaging, and keeping race cars running.
We are joined this week by Miss Jackie, back by popular demand. WE catch up with what has been going on recently with her race car build, Honda Challenge and anything else that came up.
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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