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Term
base timing
Base timing is the starting point for when the spark plug fires in the engine. If it’s set wrong, the engine can run rough or not make power because the spark happens at the wrong moment.
Term
sensors
Sensors are the car’s measuring devices that tell the engine computer what’s happening. If important sensors are damaged or plugged into the wrong spot, the computer gets bad information and the engine can fail to run right.
Term
V tech sensor
A VTEC/VVT sensor helps the engine computer control variable valve timing. If that sensor is miswired or broken, the engine may not switch modes correctly and can run poorly.
Term
distributor
The distributor is an ignition part that sends spark to the right spark plug at the right time. Swapping it can change how the engine fires and whether it runs correctly.
Concept
decision tree
A decision tree is a step-by-step way to find a problem. You check one thing first, then decide what to test next based on what you find.
Term
wiring diagram
A wiring diagram is like a map for the car’s electrical connections. It helps you confirm which wire plugs into which sensor so the engine computer gets the right information.
Term
squirrelly under breaking heavy breaking in the rear
“Squirrelly” means the car feels a little unpredictable or hard to control. Here, it sounds like the back of the car starts to slide or lose traction when braking hard, which can make the car want to rotate.
Term
wheel bearings
Wheel bearings are small parts that help each wheel spin smoothly. If they wear out, they can make loud noises, especially when turning or when the car is putting weight on that wheel.
Term
hard right hand turns
“Hard right-hand turns” load the suspension and wheel bearings differently on each side of the car. If the noise is worst during these turns, it often points to a specific side’s bearing or a component that’s sensitive to lateral load.
Term
40 horsepower more
Horsepower is how much power the engine makes. “40 horsepower more” usually means the car should feel noticeably quicker, but it won’t automatically fix handling issues like braking stability.
Term
RPMs
RPMs tell you how fast the engine is spinning. More RPMs usually means the engine is working harder, but it can also get hotter and wear faster if you push it too much.
Place
JMP
NJMP is a race track in New Jersey. They’re talking about a particular right-hand turn there and how they approach it while driving.
Concept
oiling down the track
It’s slang for making the track slippery by putting oil or fluid on it. That lowers tire grip, so the car can slide more easily—useful for showing control, but it’s also riskier.
Car
RX seven
The RX-7 is a Mazda sports car known for a unique engine that spins instead of using pistons. Here, they’re talking about it breaking badly during track testing—basically a major failure.
Concept
seat time
“Seat time” is racing slang for the amount of time a driver spends actually driving the car on track. More seat time usually means more learning—better understanding of braking points, tire behavior, and line choice.
Term
hot pit
A “hot pit” is the pit area where cars are actively being serviced or prepared while the session is ongoing, and where the car can be exposed to heat, fumes, and track debris. In racing, it’s a more intense environment than the garage because timing and safety procedures are tighter.
Term
oil smoke
If you smell or see “oil smoke,” it usually means oil is getting hot and burning somewhere. If it’s coming into the cabin, that’s a red flag that something is leaking or failing.
Term
shift light
A shift light is a warning light on the dashboard that tells you when to change gears. If the car doesn’t have one, you have to watch the RPMs yourself and decide when to shift.
Term
oiling problems
This is when the engine doesn’t get enough oil (or the oil can’t flow properly). Without good oil circulation, engine parts can overheat and get damaged.
Term
overheating
Overheating is when the engine gets too hot. That can damage the engine because the oil and metal parts can’t handle the heat.
Term
bearing spins
A bearing is a small part that helps moving metal surfaces slide smoothly. “Bearing spins” means it starts moving in the wrong way, usually because it isn’t getting enough oil, and that can ruin the engine.
Term
oil gallery clogs
An “oil gallery” is an internal oil passage in the engine block/head that routes oil to critical components. If it clogs (from debris or sludge), oil can’t reach bearings, causing rapid overheating and failure.
Term
frags
Here “frags” just means the engine gets ruined badly. It’s describing how a problem can turn into major damage quickly.
Term
piston
A piston is the part inside the engine cylinder that moves up and down. If the engine timing is wrong, the piston can end up where it shouldn’t be when the valves are open.
Term
valves
Valves are the engine’s “doors” that open and close to let air in and exhaust out. If timing is off, those doors can be open at the wrong time and get hit by the piston.
Term
jump timing
“Jump timing” means the engine timing got thrown off. If the timing is off enough, the valves and pistons can end up in the wrong positions at the same time, which can cause damage.
Term
reducer wheel
A reducer wheel is a mechanical piece that changes how much something turns or how fast it turns. In this context, it’s being discussed as part of getting the engine’s timing to line up correctly.
Term
ignition timing
Ignition timing is when the spark happens inside the engine. If it’s early or late, the engine can run less smoothly or even be damaged.
Concept
old lemons
“Old lemons” sounds like a nickname for a group or car project. In the story, it’s being used to describe people working on a car and chasing the right parts to get it running.
Term
IOE
IOE is a shorthand name for an award/category at the event. The hosts are arguing whether the Studebaker has won that award before, so it matters for who gets recognized.
Term
judges choice
“Judges choice” means a group of judges picked a winner. It’s usually based on more than just speed—more like overall impression—so it’s a separate kind of win.
Term
HMG
HMG is another award name used at this kind of race weekend. They’re saying that Studebaker cars that entered “Lemons” have historically won that particular award.
Car
Ford Fiestas
The Ford Fiesta Active is a small Ford hatchback with styling meant to look a bit more “adventure-ready” than a standard Fiesta. It’s built for normal daily driving, like commuting and errands, but with a more rugged look. It may be mentioned because the Fiesta model has been recognized with awards over time.
Car
Ford Fiesta
The Ford Fiesta is a small Ford car that’s been around for many years. In this conversation, it’s mentioned as the car that replaced the Ford Capri, even though they’re different kinds of cars.
Car
Ford Capri
The Ford Capri is an older Ford from Europe that people often think of as a sporty coupe. Here, it’s being compared to the Ford Fiesta as an earlier car the speaker had.
Place
Pocono
Pocono is a famous race track in Pennsylvania. It has both an oval track and an infield road-course area, and the host is saying they’ll run the infield road course rather than the oval next week.
Place
Trioval
The Trioval is part of the oval section of the Pocono track. It’s the high-speed, banked part—so if you don’t use it, the driving feels different and usually less intense.
Place
internal road course
The internal road course is the part of the track that runs through the infield. It’s different from the oval, and the host is saying it feels flatter, but it still has good variety for practice.
Term
cone it out
“Cone it out” means using cones to mark a course line. It’s a way to set up specific turns and practice points for training.
Concept
infield
The infield is the inside area of a race track, between the main outer sections. Using it in a course layout can make the track feel more technical and can change how cars meet each other.
Topic
SCCA
SCCA is a big U.S. club that runs amateur racing events. In this segment, they’re saying SCCA builds race courses by combining parts of the track, like the oval and the infield.
Place
Lime Rock Park
Lime Rock Park is a race track in Connecticut. It’s known for being twisty and technical, so getting the car set up and driven well matters a lot.
Term
champ car
“Champ Car” is the name of a racing series they were trying to race in. It affects which events you can enter and how the schedule works.
Place
Thompson
“Thompson” is another race track in Connecticut. It’s a different course than Lime Rock, so teams usually have to change how they set up and drive the car.
Place
New Hampshire
They’re talking about a race event in New Hampshire. Different tracks behave differently, so the car setup and tire strategy can change.
Place
Summit
“Summit” is a race track (Summit Point) where they’re planning to race. It has a mix of fast and twisty corners, so the car needs good grip and predictable braking.
Term
AER
AER is an acronym for another racing category or event type. In this sentence, they’re just saying they’ll have another kind of race on the schedule.
Term
lucky dog
“Lucky dog” is a rule that can let a car that’s behind by one lap get that lap back during a caution. It’s meant to keep the race from being too punishing for teams that got trapped in traffic.
Place
VIR
“VIR” stands for Virginia International Raceway, a well-known road course in Virginia. It’s a track where the car’s grip and braking feel can change a lot from corner to corner.
Term
drive stick
“Drive stick” means driving a car with a manual transmission. You have to use the clutch and shift gears yourself, and the speaker says they’ll be unable to do that for a while.
Car
Hyundai Veloster
The Hyundai Veloster is a small hatchback that’s usually more budget-friendly than most sports cars. In this conversation, it’s the car the speaker is about to finish paying off.
Car
Porsche Cayman
A Porsche Cayman is a sports car with the engine placed closer to the middle of the car. That layout helps it feel nimble and fun to drive. Here, it’s just the car the speaker is planning to move to next.
Car
Chevrolet C6
The Chevrolet Corvette C6 is a generation of the Corvette sports car (the 2006 model is mentioned here). It’s a V8 performance car, and the speaker is talking about a low-mileage example that’s about to be auctioned.
Term
automatic
“Automatic” means the car changes gears by itself. The speaker is pointing out that this Corvette doesn’t require manual shifting.
Term
chrome wheels
Chrome wheels are wheels with a shiny, reflective finish. In this segment, they’re just part of the Corvette’s described appearance.
Term
one of one
“One of one” means it’s basically the only car like that—no exact twin. The speaker is saying this Corvette is special and unique in how it’s been kept and set up.
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 there 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.
Yeah, baby. Yeah.
Is it an evil podcast?
It is.
No, you always do that, dad.
No, it's just a podcast.
It is. It is tonight.
Eric's got his helmet on. I mean, his hair on.
Yeah, baby. Do I make you horny?
Yeah, baby. Yeah.
I am very, very confident in my answer.
No.
Do I make you Randy then, baby? Yeah.
We had so many good moments.
Yes.
You know, whether they like the theme or not, we had endless moments.
Who knew so many people didn't like the movie?
I don't know.
You know what I have to say? Fuck them.
They don't know what they're missing.
They do.
It's all good.
Have we started the podcast?
Nope, not yet.
Oh, it's recording.
I don't want to burn pod.
Okay.
And then let's talk about it.
All right.
Welcome to the garage heroes and training podcast.
We're here to make you horny, baby.
Yeah, baby. Yeah.
Reporting live.
A little late, but live.
Because none of us, none of us died.
We are going to be talking about our NJMP hoopties, 2026.
Who else is here?
I'm picky.
I'm Jennifer.
I'm Jeff.
And I'm Eric.
I don't know.
And we are everyone.
No, we're not.
Hold habits.
Hold habits.
And I'm company productions.
Oh, wait.
That's a whole different podcast flash flashbacks flashbacks.
All right.
Flash forwards.
You can be Jeremy.
Okay.
I'll be there.
Hi.
Okay.
So, let's start with the ladies, ladies.
There was a bit of prep for this race.
Would you, would you care to start?
Hmm.
Well, our, our, oh, our prep started about as usual, about three weeks before the
race, maybe a month and getting the engine all prepped.
Still trying to figure out stuff from the crash from 2024.
And listen, I know that seems like a lot, but the car had only been on track because
in 2025 we shut the garage down.
Okay.
Fair.
No excuses necessary.
Keep it right.
So it had one race and then it was the second, but we did a lot of work at West Virginia.
We fixed a lot of things.
We really did.
The car was still being sorted out from that, from that trip.
So when, when I got the car back, fifth still bothered me and everybody was still concerned.
We kept saying, no, don't worry about it.
You're not going to, it still bothered me a lot.
So I did pull the transmission.
I did have it taken out and, you know, granted there was a couple of things that were going
on with it.
And I got it sorted out and then put back into the car and I got that all sorted out.
I checked a bunch of other things, got, you know, to my situation, I got as much as I
could get done and I dropped off at a shop and still try to sort things out, still couldn't
get the car sorted out, figured I would take it to the track and I'm going to end it there
with the, I had 13 builders all over this car still trying to sort it out, which I am
very, very thankful for.
Did you theme before you sent it?
No.
After.
No.
No.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, no.
So, so the auto repair, Jennifer did come in for that weekend and we had decided on the
design for our theme and what was our theme?
Austin Powers, baby.
Yeah, baby.
Yeah.
So, yep.
And so Jennifer, we sorted out a, a, and settled on a design and I have to say it was spectacular.
It was spectacular.
The colors were nice.
It was beautiful.
It's still beautiful.
It's so ruining, baby.
It makes me randy, baby.
I love it.
It was really good.
The colors really worked out.
We did the Union Jack on it all over the car and then I, I hopped on Etsy and Etsy had
these beautiful just flowers and it was very hippie flowers and the colors just went so
well with the car and we just kind of did spots all over the car and I have to say it
was probably one of our prettiest cars that went out.
Most colorful and prettiest cars.
Absolutely.
And the blue was beautiful.
The blue was beautiful.
Did you, did you hand cut all of that?
No.
Yes.
Not the flowers.
No, not the flowers.
No, the stripes.
No.
Oh yeah.
Jennifer and I, so we cheated a little bit on that.
We already had the white.
We already had the white so we cut the strips in that.
Jennifer was, was great at cutting because I kept cutting myself and it was blood everywhere.
She threw me back onto the car.
He needed the red stripes.
I just, yeah.
But for the red stripe.
We do.
We do.
But, but the, the, the stripes that we had actually used was just a large roll of like
10 inch red.
So we were able.
Yeah.
And that just made it, that made it a whole lot easier.
But yeah.
Yeah.
And if you get a chance, you just go to lemon's page or something, look for this car.
It is beautiful.
It is.
It was by far the best looking car at the entire track built on track.
Sure.
Can you not like put it in the zoom right now?
I can, but it's not a video podcast.
It doesn't really matter.
So isn't that what the interwebs allow?
Unless it will be, it will be on the post.
I mean, we can do a video podcast.
I don't mind.
I'm okay with doing videos.
All right.
Fine.
It's funny because I've worked wearing costumes.
I don't want to do a video.
I'm wearing costumes.
I specifically put on my F1.
Oh, you're Haas?
Haas racing shirt.
Yeah.
Okay.
So yeah, it all worked out really well.
Jennifer and I were very tired, but very pleased at the end.
Of course, you know, track paddock food.
That is, you know, it kind of comes together really quick now.
Yes.
And even the cars, when we do the cars, it goes a lot quicker.
Yeah.
When Jennifer and I work together, we can slam a car in a weekend.
We really can.
That's awesome.
Yes.
And then you're both shot for the next three days from doing,
just doing vinyl.
Oh, my body hurts so bad because, oh my gosh, it was awful because
not only had I done all the, like, the heavy work on that car and,
like, haul in my, you know, dinky transmission, but then all the
moving and the stretching and the bending and, oh, like, I must
have worked every muscle in my body.
You know, baby, vital yoga reminds me of Miss Kensington.
Yeah, baby.
Yeah.
You know, one year, three pound mafia history here, we had three
or four cars registered for every race.
And we decided we were going to do a new theme for every race.
Oh.
Every race was going to have every car decorated.
And everyone was going to like, we like planned it out.
The next year we were like, F that.
The car gets done once.
Well, we could adjust it.
But it's so hard to not only like build the costumes and the car
and like, so luckily we had a vinyl cutter.
So we would like peel some things and put some new things on.
But like to do a full body decoration is, is.
Yeah.
Don't I know it.
Oh, you mean the car?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I got it all wrong.
Well, Dave apparently learned his lesson and hasn't changed his
team since I've known him.
So that's eight years.
So he's making up for that.
Aaron, Aaron themed that car and wanted it.
And he in, in deference to Aaron's passing, he's never going to change it.
No.
And that's fine.
I know it's just fun to pick on him though.
That's good.
So, so I know in our car that we'll, we'll choose the theme and it,
and we'll keep it for two years and we'll, we'll morph out whatever
that's going to be for the theme to carry over.
At least one year.
We were changing every year.
Now that you're like Union Jack, there's other ways to do.
Oh yeah.
Anything.
Anything English.
Anything English.
Maybe World Cup.
World Cup.
We could do World Cup.
We could do Bad Teeth.
Eric will do anything.
Can I say, I know this isn't the woot episode.
Yes.
But I am watching so much fricking football slash soccer right now.
It's, it's unheard of.
Oh my gosh.
And I know that this is a little woot spin off, but I have been
watching the Europeans enjoy America.
America.
Oh my God.
Holy cow.
The food.
The yellow buses.
Awesome.
Yellow buses.
Yeah.
For those of you who don't know the World Cup soccer is going on
right now.
If you only watch racing, you don't know this, but the Scottish
people have.
The Tartan Army.
When they're home, they follow a bus.
So they got here.
They're all staying in like Rhode Island.
And the game is happening at wherever the hell the New
England Patriots play.
So they tried.
I know it's Boston, but it's not really Boston.
It's just outside.
So anyway, so they booked a bunch of yellow school buses to
take them all from Providence, Rhode Island to wherever the
hell the stadium is.
And they were like, we don't know.
We couldn't afford real buses, which is what we usually
use.
And we've never seen yellow school buses except on the
Simpsons.
They didn't think they were real.
They were like, yeah, we thought this was a joke.
They also drank Boston out of beer.
Yes.
No.
Boston ran out of beer.
Yeah.
I'm just thinking, Jen.
Man.
The stadium's Gillette.
It's in Foxborough.
Foxborough is the stadium.
I don't know where Foxborough is compared to like downtown
Boston.
It's outside.
Jennifer, we might have to go visit your son like next month
because they're literally off for the entire month.
They get 28 days of vacation.
They're here for all 28 days.
Well, they're headed to Miami now.
Yeah.
But the fan base.
No, but the fan base.
So here's a couple of Jeff connections.
You all know I work at Stockton University down there in
South Jersey.
We are the home practice location for the Haitian World Cup
team.
Nice.
So they like the state police have like built barricades around
our athletic center.
And when they're there practicing, they're like anti-drone
units ready to like shoot you and like guys with guns on the
roofs to make sure nobody is spying on their practice.
Were they guns?
Were they guns?
They were henchmen.
Now, since it's a podcast, you can't see it.
Both Jeff and I have done the patented pinky to the corner of
our lips.
Is it an easy one?
Okay.
So back to racing.
That was that was a good spin off because I have been thoroughly
enjoying the FIFA right now.
But so that that's how you go back to racing by talking more about
FIFA.
But yeah, so we're going, we're going back to racing.
So anyway, the car.
So wait.
Okay.
Reason number 89 that we do the cars ahead of time is so you are
useful the week of.
Yes.
Yes.
But I also had to work with Jennifer's schedule also.
And, and yes, that there were problems with the car that I just
couldn't work out.
I ran out of skill.
I ran out of skill.
Yeah.
All right.
And then.
So the car comes to the track Thursday night.
It's running.
Well, we had not great.
We had pre-meetings.
We had pre-meetings about theming.
We did.
That went poorly.
They went poorly because not enough people showed up and it was hard
to do.
And I, I have to admit, I was incredibly too busy to do as good a
job as I should have.
So I apologize to you all.
No, you did great.
A little bit.
Well, I didn't because I couldn't get, I couldn't figure out how I was
going to make sure people did the things I needed them to do.
So I was a late ad.
Yes.
You were a late late ad.
I was late late ad.
So for those of you who don't know, my car is still not running.
And I didn't know how I was going to get there.
And at the last second, Uncle Dave found me a seat in the Cressida.
Nice.
Yeah.
Thanks to the dishwashing fairy being out of the country.
He was in Ibiza or something.
I don't know where he was.
Somewhere where they play soccer.
Yeah.
I don't know where it was.
Star TV.
I think with about a week and a half's notice, I knew I was coming to the
race.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But next time we do that, I want to actually have some sessions where
everybody's actually on for video sessions and we get to actually talk
through things instead of what we had, which was kind of like throw it all
together last minute.
Yeah.
Well, then Uncle Dave didn't know who was in his car.
Yeah.
It was hard for him to participate and prepare.
So it was a bit of a throw together at the last moment.
But the car was fantastic.
It is what it is.
I just feel like I could have done a better job.
It's okay.
We could do it again.
There's no reason that you can't do it again.
I think part of it was fun.
I think part of it was the energy from pretty much everybody was shot after
Thursday and Friday.
The suck of the car trying to get us sorted out.
Let's tell the saga of the weekend.
Okay.
So you all arrived Thursday night.
I couldn't get there until Friday due to obligations and blah,
blah.
Apparently Thursday night.
Yeah, we got there like three o'clock.
Three o'clock they let us in and we started wrenching.
Yep.
Determined a few things.
It had a cam timing issue.
It had some broken wires from the intake area during some sensors.
It had unknown other possible things that were being trying to be diagnosed.
I'll describe it this way.
The computer did not know what was happening.
Yes.
So the computer was basically unable to read a lot of the sensors.
So it did not know how to meter, fuel, and air.
So it was just kind of going, I don't know, fire the injectors.
I don't know, fire the spark plugs.
Well, first of all, it was an evil computer.
Yes, which we might have to replace actually that might be on our list.
So anyway, but we were very methodical and Jeremy's coming soon so he can join in.
We were very methodical.
We were looking at sensors saying, OK, that's not working.
Follow the sensors.
What's wrong?
There's another sensor.
Follow the sensor.
What's wrong?
We repaired six or seven wires in the wiring harness that were broken.
Yeah.
We did a lot of making sure everything was plugged in the right place.
You know, like we were doing the decision tree, you know, the diagnostic decision tree pretty
hard and pretty methodically.
Yeah.
And the rule is do not make more than one change at the same time.
You don't move two things, see nothing changes and then move two things because then you
don't know if it was right the first time or wrong the first second time.
And that's going to be a flashback in a few minutes.
Right.
Oh, we call that.
No, I'm not going to ruin it for you.
Anyway, so.
Santa Jeremy.
Santa Jeremy, you're here.
Hello.
Hola.
How are we?
Oh, and Jeremy too.
Hey, good to see you, man.
How's it going guys?
His camera is not long enough to fit all of his beard.
Yeah.
I actually just had three and a half inches cut off of it yesterday morning.
Yeah.
But what about your beard?
See.
Yeah.
Very nice.
Did the oil do that or did that?
Never mind.
Just the tip.
Just the tip.
So, so, so there was a point where I guess it was around Friday dinner time.
Now we'd already missed you.
You had all because I was with the Cressida.
You had already missed your, your, uh, uh, judging time.
Tech.
Tech.
Trying to get things working.
Um, you know, there was frustration all around.
I could feel it.
Um, and there, there was a moment where Bill, I think pretty smartly said it's
time to put the wrenches down and go talk it out.
And let's go to dinner is what he said.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that was really smart.
Yeah.
I was unable to attend dinner.
I had to stay with Dave.
We had some things to do with some things to take care of.
So we ended up staying at thing and, uh, you know, the, the Honda whisperer
who was there to, uh, actually judge and not wrench on the car came over
and said, Jeff, tell me what's going on.
And I said, I don't know.
Jeremy's in the middle of this.
Jeremy's, Jeremy's really working hard on this.
Uh, last I heard like, again, base timing was off seven or eight wires in
the sensors, the critical sensors were broken.
Um, we had our, what else have we done, Jeremy?
Just feel free.
We've, we found some other wires.
Well, some other sensors that were plugged in, um, to the wrong ports.
So like the V tech, the V tech sensor was, um, the connector for that was
actually like in somewhere else, we changed the distributor.
Yeah.
Like I said, we were going down the decision tree pretty thick.
So, um, so, uh, Chris from the three pedal mafia comes over and he has
out the big wiring diagram and he's like, did you do this?
I'm like, yes, did you do this?
Yes.
Did you do this?
Yes.
He goes, I don't trust you.
I'm going to double check your work.
I said, all right, I got it.
Yeah.
Well, it wasn't working.
So something was wrong.
Yeah.
It wasn't like we had it fixed and he was going to break it.
Um, and something that Jerry, Jeremy and I changed like four times and
basically there's two sensors that can be plugged in with the wiring artists
in either direction.
We'd flipped them every time except the one time it was really important.
So Chris flipped them for like the seventh time and all of a sudden it
woke up and started working.
So it, it wasn't those sensors being flipped that was stopping it for
working.
It was all the repairs that were made before that.
Not fixing the wires.
It doesn't matter where you flipped them.
Not having the base time together.
It doesn't matter where you flip them.
Not having, you know, again, again and again,
just put the whole list there, flip the wires and all of a sudden it was
working.
Um, change some of the fuel pressure, change a few things.
And then it was race time, right?
I'll give it to you all.
Yeah.
Well, I sneeze.
Yes.
Yep.
So, uh, it was, it was running pretty well and we went to bed, got up in
the morning early to do tech.
Yeah.
Which was brilliant by the way.
It was absolutely brilliant.
We were a little off our, we were a little off our game.
I can't believe you got lost going to tech though.
But it was still, it was still brilliant even though we were off our
game.
Yeah.
But it was, it was all I'm saying is that we kind of lost our, our
little bit of a mojo, baby.
Mojo.
But we, we tried to make up for it all day.
Uh, got the car in, we did the, um, Austin Powers theme and a bunch of
dancing and the,
Oh no, but he did, he couldn't, we had to turn around in the short
space like he did with the cart.
He had to do the K turn.
27 point.
K turn in the middle of judging.
It was brilliant.
Car.
So you didn't see like how the vibe kind of developed in judging.
You're right.
Like we're all there in our costumes and we're like a million
dollars sharks with laser beams, you know, blah,
you know, Jeremy was being mini me, which he's got a two foot
beard and he's like four inches taller than me.
I don't know.
It was hilarious.
I was like, maybe me got a little older.
You know, it was really funny.
You gave him that like some sort of steroids or something.
That was hilarious.
Nobody was paying attention to us at all.
That's awesome.
And then Eric pulls in and he starts like the multi turn K turn.
And like slowly because that kind of, you know, like people are in
costumes doing stupid stuff all the time, but the like million
point K turn like was kind of like, it's iconic.
Wait, wait, still doing it.
Yeah.
Oh, wait, it's Austin.
Oh, wait, the movie like, like everybody some time to develop.
It slowly progressed into the entire place.
Like all of a sudden looking over there.
It was hilarious.
It was hilarious.
Like the laughter was kind of cascading through judging.
And by time everybody was watching is about the time you pulled
like the most important thing about comedy is timing.
And that lasted the appropriate amount of time.
It did.
It did.
Three more turns.
And it wasn't just that it was him doing the whole head thing
too, because he was looking forward and he will look backwards
and he will look forward and he will look backward and he looks
so concerned as he was doing it.
He would do it again.
It was amazing.
And it was pantomime.
There were no lines.
There's nobody there.
We were last.
So it was perfect.
Nobody was like, look what he's doing.
It just just went.
Yeah.
And that was so we had a great kickoff and that was fantastic.
We started racing.
Right.
I think Vicki went out first.
Had a great run.
Yes.
Yep.
She came in.
Did you come in yet one come in for one thing?
You came in like 45 times.
Oh, I've got a splinter.
The car is making noise.
And it was.
I had concerns.
We were in the windshield.
We were in 23rd.
Excuse me.
Could you scratch my ear?
It's itchy.
What?
We were 23rd when it all started.
And then we were 112th at the end of it.
I did not want to blow the engine.
The car is making noise.
It's a car.
It's a race car.
Well, it does make noise.
Race car.
Yep.
So she did great.
She did great.
She brought us down into good standing.
I then went in for two hours.
Which was an impressive feat again.
That's right.
Which is one of my major goals, which is to not get sick,
which I didn't get sick.
I had a fantastic time out there.
I enjoyed myself.
And then.
And you and Vicki were running great times.
Fantastic times.
Yep.
And then I came in.
Jen went out for a lap and a half.
I mean, an hour and a half.
By the way.
By the way.
By the way, beat her best time in that car by over 20 seconds.
She was killing it.
That's awesome.
Annihilating.
Annihilating.
It's the fact that the, I mean, not that Jen was it better than
she was in the previous, but this probably means that the car
was driving much better.
Because that I didn't drive it.
So I can't really comment.
Well, I said car was driving great.
You know, we could talk about little things about it is this
and that, but it gets a little squirrelly under breaking heavy
breaking in the rear.
It's got some noise left side of either left front rear or front
wheel bearings.
But as a consistent car.
We better bring it in.
We better bring it in, Eric.
I know.
I did.
I did bring it in.
I want you guys to check it because it's making a lot of noise
in hard right hand turns.
I, I did, but he did West Virginia.
Yeah.
How much better was it than West Virginia?
Because West Virginia.
Power.
It had 40 horsepower more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
West Virginia on Sunday.
It couldn't get out of its own way.
Oh no.
It's a totally different car.
Right.
It's still consistent in handling, but it had 40 more horsepower.
It wasn't consistent on Saturday.
Which is like 50% more horsepower actually than no joke.
Right.
Yeah.
So it was so much better than, than a West Virginia summit.
So, and that was lovely.
I could really actually annoy the shit out of people, not just in
the corners.
Right.
Which was lovely.
So Jen, what was going on with the car with you?
Do you remember?
Nothing.
She was driving it and had fun.
I thought it ran fine.
It was when I had fun.
I, I said it ran rough, but I, I couldn't have said rough.
It just sounded just a little deeper than it normally does.
Like, you know what I mean?
But there's the noise.
I think that's what we want.
Like, uh, uh, uh.
Ring, ring, ring.
What was it doing?
Well, whatever, whatever noise the engine makes, it just
sounded just a little deeper.
That's all.
It didn't, it didn't make any, it drove fine.
Like it didn't, it didn't lag.
It didn't do anything like, I mean, it, I had a great stint.
It, it wasn't, it didn't do anything to cause me any
mechanical concern.
Right.
Right.
It ran consistently.
It just, the, the, it just sounded like a little deeper
than the engine normally is.
And, and I know that it just had been having a lot of issues
and stuff.
So before we get to Jeremy's, before we get to Jeremy's stint.
Yeah, let's go.
Let's get all these details before we get to Jeremy's six.
92 degrees.
Yeah.
And we did, and the cool shirt wasn't working.
So it was, was warm, but I chalked that up too.
That didn't really bother me for some reason.
No, it didn't.
And we didn't, and we didn't have a drink bottle holder in it
either.
And it didn't have a drink bottle.
And the mimosas were all out.
Yep.
We were out of mimosas.
So annoying.
And not only that, but I'm pretty sure Wakeman was in there
earlier eating all the watercress sandwiches because they were
gone by the time I got in.
So what the hell?
They used a miracle whip instead of Hellman's real mayonnaise
in the chicken salad.
Terrible, terrible weekend.
Okay.
So that was all true.
So Jen gets out hour and a half and Jeremy gets in.
Jeremy, tell me, tell me about your incredible prolonged stint
to finish the day.
Oh, so let's talk about this.
Right.
So before Jen gets in the car, she says, I think I only want to do
an hour and a half.
Are you okay with that?
And I said, oh, two and a half hours.
I'm a seed whore.
I'll do whatever.
Sure.
Don't limit yourself, Jeremy.
You're more than a seed whore.
You're a generic whore.
Okay.
I'm speaking of that, Jen.
Do you have any, do you have any snacks?
What?
All right.
So anyway.
So Eric had said it was making the noise, right?
Under hard right hand turn.
So left side noise.
And so my idea, what my plan typically right is, okay, I've got
to make fuel last.
If I drive this thing hard, it's only going to last two hours.
So first half hour, my stint, I'm going to go out, feel the car,
see what I feel, listen to all the noises, make sure that
everything sounds and feels perfectly fine.
So I'm like, okay, that's, that's my goal for the first half
hour.
And then I'm going to go out.
And then the next two hours, I'll just run the thing hard.
And so I go out, I go through, go through a great plan, great
plan and all that stuff.
Right.
Sounds like a brilliant plan.
Right.
It is.
But how did the execution go?
The execution was, was even better.
So I get out, I go, I go on the track, I come up over the hill
on turn two, I give it a little bit of gas and I'm kind of, you
know, feeling the car, I go through the S's and I'm like, okay,
well, everything seems to feel okay at this speed.
Let's, let's pick the pace up a little bit here and see what
happens.
And so I start going up the hill and, and I get up to turn number
four and up the hill, it kind of started to lag a little like it
was like, it was being restricted.
Like somebody threw an anchor out behind me.
And so I start pushing on the gas a little bit.
No V tech yo.
No V tech.
Well, I hadn't got to that RPM.
I was only at 4,000 RPMs.
So I go, I go to, go to turn into turn four and yeah,
bang, boom, bang, bang.
I can't see anything.
It's all smoke everywhere.
The block needed to vent.
The cylinder head was, was a little clogged up in the block
needed to vent.
I have a question.
Don't save talking to you.
Was it an evil hole?
God, you always do that.
Jeremy, Jeremy, when, when you go to turn forward and JMP,
which is a right hand turn, do you often turn left right
before the turn just to make it look more impressive?
Cause I noticed you turn left on this lap.
Well, I wanted to, I wanted to make it look more impressive
cause I wanted all the, the fans out there that could watch
the video to see how you really go fast, like an F1 driver.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For those of you who don't race all the time,
that's what you do when you know you're oiling down the track.
Yes.
You don't want to screw it up for all the people behind you.
And I thank you because I was still out there on the track.
I don't know if it was me at the time, but our car is out there.
Yes.
You want to get off of the track as quickly as you possibly can.
Jeremy, I have some, some sympathy for you because I had someone
do this to me.
Eric, you might have remembered this.
I pretty sure it was NJMP.
And I think it was the RX seven where we blew up the RX seven
on testing day.
Darren's, Darren was running with what's his name
from North Carolina.
The Dorito Dan.
And they had like an extra neon.
Yeah.
Yeah.
An extra neon.
An extra neon.
And they're like, Hey, if you want to just like swap us some seat time,
we'll let you use our car all weekend.
And we're like, hell yeah.
And they're like, okay.
And I don't even remember her name.
She was the car owner.
And she went out and she was turning some really good laps.
And I have never turned a lap in a neon.
It was an ACR.
It was very well built.
And as we get to the, we're changing in the hot pit,
she leans in and she yells and she says,
it's a bit smoky in the cabin.
And I'm like, Oh, okay.
I guess that's normal.
She's the car owner.
She doesn't seem concerned.
I get out there and my eyes are like bleeding from how much oil
smoke is in the cabin.
Oh Jesus.
Was it, was it evil smoke?
I'm like, I, I like, I can turn this neon out, man.
I know what I'm doing.
And there's no shift light anywhere on this thing.
And I'm trying to figure out where the, where the shift,
like what the RPMs are going,
I don't even think there was where the best point to shift is.
And all of a sudden it was like, why can't I see out the window
anymore?
And I hold the block.
I think on the second lap.
So I went around once.
So Jeremy's better.
He's more efficient.
That's right.
Right.
It only took him half a lap.
Jeff.
I mean, Jesus.
Could you do better next time?
Get, get it done in one lap.
God.
So bad.
Cause I was convinced that I had done it, but damage was done.
I mean, when, when you have a car that has oiling problems or
overheating or whatever, when you stop it for that time and
then you start flogging it again, that bearing spins or that
oil gallery clogs or that just builds up and just frags the
rest of the motor.
And that's exactly what happened.
Jennifer's fault.
Yeah.
No, she just would have drove the rest of the day.
It would have been fine.
So likely the bearing had already spun when Jen Wetter was coming
in and what it was doing, it was just clogging up the hole in
the crank and thus interning additional heat.
And then at that point, when you start really spinning up,
it starts clogging.
When you turn it off, it just melts.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so it probably just clogged up.
And then Jeremy went out there very efficiently, windowed the
block within a half a lap.
Congratulations.
Good job, Jeremy.
Thank you.
Both claps for Jeremy.
Both claps.
We can do this.
We can do this.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, listen, many me was trying to kill everybody all
weekend.
And Dr. Evil said no.
So I mean, you got to kill the car then.
So the really good thing is, is that we have a backup engine.
I honestly wasn't surprised at the engine went.
I mean, in all honesty, for as much as the engine's been through
since the crash anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just, just sorting it out.
And I'm looking back on my own education as I'm going through
this process and technically I should have just when the car came
back, just should have pulled the whole engine and just did a
whole, did a whole once over with everything.
No, no, because they might, they might have pulled the engine
to straighten the car and just put it back in the best way they
knew how.
And there was just stuff that was missing like all over the
engine and that should have been, you know, what I could have done
and then having radios in the car would have been great.
And, you know, there's a lot of like little things.
So we're going to go back to the drawing board and we're going
to go back, you know, with this new one that's going to go in and
just crawl all over everything.
Yeah.
And just not work, you know, put the fresh wires in and and Alan
will be there just to make sure that everything is short up for me
and check my work at the same time as we work on this together.
So I adjusted my microphones.
Hopefully you can hear me better.
Yeah, baby.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
I didn't realize I didn't have my phone.
I didn't have my phone.
Alan helping.
Oh, no.
No, no, actually he's very good.
He's joking.
He's just been.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Alan's very, very good.
And the nice thing is, is when Alan comes our,
our ADD kind of bounces off each other.
So we have a blast in the garage.
So it's, it's, it's a, it's pure optimism and, you know,
joy when we work on these things.
There's no stress at all.
So I'm really happy for the two of you.
Honestly, you just need someone there to like make sure.
Bill's just losing hair as it's all happening.
Yes.
I'm up to a five head right now.
They're going to make it a six head the way they're going to.
Yeah.
We're a menace to Bill when we get together.
We really are.
So I know we just can't stop, but, but you know,
I have so much fun when he's in the garage and so it's,
it's going to get another chance to,
to better understand how flipping engines are.
So, I mean.
So you're just swapping in a fully prepped,
not fully prepped, a fully assembled backup motor.
No.
No, no, you're not.
So he says yes.
Bill says no.
Yes.
I know.
I'm used to it.
Okay.
Um, we're going to take the engine out.
We're going to check, we're going to check the head.
See if it's good.
I doubt it.
Oh, okay.
I doubt it.
If it's good.
Great.
If not, then we have to.
Well, to be honest with you, it might still be okay.
If, I mean, it wasn't high RPM.
So it could, if anything did happen, maybe the piston just kind
of kissed one of the, um, valves, but it wasn't high RPM.
So I'm more concerned about the head from summit point because
we ran it the whole weekend with the timing that you have.
With the timing off.
That's the key is did the timing, jump timing.
And I never saw Jeremy, you saw how many teeth it was off.
So at a quick glance from what I could see, because you have to
take everything off to see everything.
So kind of holding the cover there.
It looked like it was three teeth off from what I saw immediately.
That's a lot.
Hold on.
Did it race that way in West Virginia?
Cause three teeth is a lot for anybody in West Virginia.
That's a lot.
Yup.
It race.
It had to race that way.
Yeah.
Austin, you should be nice to West Virginia.
West Virginia is a great state.
Did you know they invented the toothbrush there?
No, I didn't know that.
Yes.
If they invented it anywhere else, they would have called it the
teeth brush.
So then we've lost all one listener from West Virginia now.
So we love you, West Virginia.
We're just having fun.
So then once we know about the head, we'll either get the head
taken care of or we'll use one of the other ones we have.
But then the blocks, we're going to have to do the math to get the
bore out on the other block and kind of piece together.
Cause the other ones aren't as, there aren't all 100%.
So we're probably going to have to take three of the ones that
we have to the machine shop and say, what can we make of this?
And then hodgepodge it together with, I think Chris wanted to do a.
I could make a hat.
Forty over.
That was the summit point theme.
Different theme.
Give me a good working block that's going to stay together with
all fresh new bearings.
Right.
And which we have all those.
So I have all the pieces.
It's just, we're probably going to need to machine it.
So you don't have one that's like a fully assembled.
No, it's not like, if we were going to, if we were going to do this,
the swap that we talked about after race, I would have come back,
got the one that we took out, which is close, but not optimal.
Cause this one was like 40.
It has less horsepower.
Yeah.
I think it was 40 over with, with a slightly different length cam,
not cam rods, connecting rods.
And so we're going to just do the same geometry on the new one.
So it's a little bit of machining and then assembly.
Yep.
No, I appreciate that.
And I think I look forward to it.
Let me know what I could do.
If you need something, I'll ship it to you.
Yeah.
If there's a weekend, like, let me know.
I can come up.
Yeah.
There's, there's a weekend every week to come up.
I don't know if I don't want to be interrupting the girls party
between Alan and Vicky.
So I want to be there because I want to see that.
I want to see Alan.
No cell phones are allowed.
I hear you really don't know.
It's hot girl garage party.
Here's the fun part is that there will most likely be skydiving
happening at the same time at the airport.
Yeah.
But you're supposed to put the bungee.
Cause you're driving everybody crazy and they jump out of the plane.
So there's a business at the front of the airport.
Skydiving.
Yeah.
We've skydiving here too.
So actually I think like call us all together when it's engine go in
day.
Yeah, that would be fun.
Cause engine come out day.
It's quick.
A monkey can do that.
You know what I mean?
Like I would rather be there for engine go in day.
Okay.
All right.
We'll do that.
We'll do a all hands on deck.
Yeah.
All right.
Now at this time.
Do a party.
At this time it's worthy for us to push back to the timeline of our
weekend and start to talk about where we went from there.
Not very.
The Honda didn't go very far.
No, the Honda kind of stayed exactly where it was until we pushed
it on the trailer.
So there was a big push for Jeremy and I to just let's let's have
Bill go get the other engine, bring it in.
We'll just slap it in and go, but you know, I think at that point
Jeremy and I have been up to about midnight to one o'clock like for
the last two nights, plus I got real beaten up before I got there.
And we're just looking at it going.
It's time to drink.
And that's exactly it.
Party with the theme because yes, we could have been, you know,
Bill would have been, you know, as much as he says what it is.
It's three hours.
It's three hours from one way to from.
Well, and it's two hours to load, even though you think it's there,
you got to do this, you got to do that.
And we had a guy there, Johnny, who's also a great, great Honda
mechanic.
He's like, I could have that out in 45 minutes.
And I'm just like, you know, I've played this and they really,
they really wanted to me and Jeremy are like, we're done.
We're like, we're going to have a good time.
Everything takes longer at the track.
Yeah.
There's always something that comes up.
Like if the motor's there, you wrench until the flag flies.
But not if you don't have a motor.
Right.
Well, the whole thing was, as I thought, I thought it was going
to be a waste of time because I didn't know the full condition
of the other engine, nor did I know if we had everything that we
possibly needed to go have it done anyway.
And then we were just exhausted.
I mean, literally we were exhausted from, from six o'clock
until 1 a.m. on, on Friday, on Thursday.
And then I was back in the garage before 6 a.m. on Friday.
And like we, you know, it was just one of those things.
And we kind of contemplated it a little bit.
And then we kind of look at each other and look around.
And it was like, no, no, it's just, we're calling it.
It's just not, I know it sounds like a great thing, but we're
going to be up all night tonight to potentially maybe just
take checkered flag tomorrow.
You know what, let's just, yeah.
My whole thing was, is that if I'm going to do it,
I'm going to do it right.
And I've made the call probably five times.
Three of them on my cars, two on other people's cars to stay up
all night swapping the motor.
And out of the 51 sort of worked.
Right.
And you know, like one of them was Laguna Seca.
And I'm going to be honest, I would have done anything to get
more laps on Laguna Seca.
I, we literally had flown just like you.
We hadn't slept much.
We'd flown to the West coast.
Chris, I, Chrissy and the other guys on the team out there.
We were in the back of the car overnight went home when the sun
came up.
And one clutch throughout bearing was put on backwards because
we were so tired.
And we had to literally start all over again and we couldn't do it.
I did it.
I did a 4.3 liter in the boat.
And we did it all night overnight.
I went to bed at the crack of dawn and left,
like left the tools, left where I was and went to bed.
Someone else came up.
We did it in shifts.
And the second motor was as bad as the first.
Like, and then there's a couple of times where we just,
we just got it out and didn't get it.
You know, like the new one was worse than the old one.
And if, if you don't know what you're putting in is really
running, man, I, I would, I mean, I'm dumb.
I would do it.
But it's, it's, it's a tough decision.
Well, not, you know, there, there is a Ryan Suska and you know,
they had a problem with their early team when they had a particular
driver that just kept blowing the engine.
So what he ended up doing was he would just bring an engine and
he had it on a rolling stand with everything that they needed.
And if we had a situation like that, that would be totally
different story.
Totally different story.
Totally different story.
Perfect.
We did, we did a rebuild on the Honda a couple of times.
I did one with Tom Lomino where the reducer wheel was bent.
I don't even know.
Eric Crisler, VW with the frick is a reducer wheel.
I mean, I know what it is now, but for the ignition timing.
Yeah, yeah.
So, but it was bent and the new road around just as poorly as
the old and we didn't know why.
And you know, Jeff, it's one of my evil plans.
And I've made them all very, very small.
What I'm saying is I'm dumb in the panic.
I'd have been like, yeah, let's do it.
It's not always the right decision.
It's not always right.
Right.
Right.
And you see other people doing silly things.
You're like, why shouldn't I be doing silly things?
That's what everybody talks about.
You know, like old lemons, they stayed up till 42 a.m. and
brought, you know, took an airplane flight to California to get
three engines that weren't right.
You know, that's the story.
So I think you did the right choice.
Right.
And, you know, obviously we're all bummed, you know, that we
were like, Oh, well, we're not going to be able to race on, you
know, we have done enough this weekend.
And you know what?
Let's just do it in the garage.
Let's have a good time for the rest of the race weekend and
let's do it in the comfort of the garage.
Yeah.
Yep.
It's fine.
I just didn't want to do the drive unless you guys were into it
and you guys didn't seem like you were into it.
So I was like, am I doing the drive or not?
No, you're not doing the drive.
No, we weren't going to let you do the drive.
But all things considered, it was still a hell of an awesome weekend.
It was.
I had a blast.
You know, me and Jennifer were saying like, again, like we had a
really rough 2025 and this was the first time we kind of stepped
out going, we're going to be all right.
Yep.
You know, it felt like everything was familiar again.
Everything didn't feel so disassociated and we just kind of
rolled into it and it was so much fun.
It really was.
All right.
So theme wise, Eric, who were you?
So I mostly played the role of Austin Powers.
I also was a Fembot for a little bit there and I was for a little
bit there.
I was Mufasa, Mustafa.
So that was it.
How about you, Bill?
I was a, I came into the weekend with three themes.
One was, I'd say your number.
Gold figure, right?
Gold member.
Gold member.
Gold member.
But I think everybody's command performance was for me to be fat
bastard.
Absolutely.
Oh my God.
And fat bastard was amazing.
Yeah, fat bastard was hysterical.
And I did not get to pull out my number two because we kind of
You know, I hate it when number two just doesn't come out.
It wouldn't come out.
Just trying to get number two out.
I was.
Speaking of the number two.
Who does number two report to?
Oh, sorry.
Workforce.
Where, where did the bribe go?
Because I never saw that because I was, a mini me was trying to
kill everybody.
What was the bribe?
I didn't even know.
Oh, our bribe.
Oh no.
Our bribe, Jeremy.
Did the, did the, did the book ever make it into public?
Oh yeah.
We did all that.
We did that sketch on Sunday.
We put the smoke into the little tent that the premature abate
Apex was set up.
And then they pulled me out as a, as an added deep freeze.
And then we brought the, my effects to me and I claimed that
it was Chris's and Chris came right over and accepted the fact
that the penis pump was in fact his.
And he enjoyed my bag, man.
It wasn't.
He enjoyed the receipt, the insurance form of the penis pump
and the receipt of the penis pumping.
Insurance form is right up his out.
That really is his bag.
There was his bag, baby.
Yeah.
And that was a fun little sketch.
I think they enjoyed that.
So the other judge bribe we had was I had custom made stress
stretch arm strong's made with the judges faces.
Oh, I never saw those either.
It had the judges faces on there.
But what they do is they take the judges faces and then they make
like the, the lips into like smoochy lips.
So naturally I chose Chris and Chrissy's wedding photo as the
two photos for Chris and Chrissy because they were two of the
judges and then a Bish was spectacular.
I think Bishes came out the best.
It was, and then Al's, Al came out nice as well.
But I think Bish was especially,
the manipulation they did to print Bish on there was,
was spectacular in my mind.
He also looks best at, is he like squishy blob?
Yeah, squishy.
You know, Chrissy might be good on a pencil, but like, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Bish, I'm talking about you.
That's right.
Bish, who doesn't come on the podcast.
He doesn't come on the podcast.
He doesn't listen to it.
So he doesn't know that you're talking and talking about him.
You did one more skit, I guess, right?
I can't do it.
It's way too hot in here.
The heat's on.
Where are you?
You're like at a house.
That looks really industrial.
You're like you're in a hotel lobby.
I'm at a hotel in North Carolina and they have the heat on.
Like it's like 95 degrees in the hotel.
Yeah.
Well, to them that's like.
Oh, it's cooler outside of your beard.
It would only be 85.
Oh, it's no, it's seriously, it's cooler outside than it is.
What are they?
Are they still act limiting the Norwegian team?
Is it an evil heat?
Are you on a baseball trip?
See, look, no, I'm working extreme.
We're working.
That's a Hampton.
By the way, for those playing home game.
Guaranteed.
So what track are you at this weekend?
NC car.
NC, NC car.
NC car.
No, NC car.
North Carolina Center for Automotive Research.
Never heard of it.
It's little.
Okay.
Jennifer.
It's over two miles.
That's a good track.
We certainly tend to, don't we?
Who are you?
Who are you, Jennifer?
Yeah, we, I was just going to say, let's get back to where we were.
So we were talking about who was rich characters.
Yes.
So I ended up with Felicity Shagbo and a random go-go person.
A Fembot.
Oh, no, that's the go-go person.
No, the go-go girl.
Yeah.
Yeah, but we, yeah, we never did the Fembot.
Well, we did, but you did.
But Vicky had the best costume, best female costume.
Vicky?
I was frau, Barbizia.
That's right.
She just treated everybody at the track like they were me and just yelled at them.
Yeah.
And I had a crock that I kept slamming.
I kept slamming the car and yelling at people.
The best was when you did it to Dale, when he was trying to inspect the car and you told
him the car is.
The car is fine.
It's fine.
And I kept slapping the crop on top of the car and yelling at people.
So, and then I was also a go-go girl.
So, with Jennifer.
Speaking of go-go girls, Jeremy, you're usually a female dressed up person.
So what were you this week?
Oh.
There goes Vicky.
Sorry.
I was mini me.
That was it?
No, but Jeremy, no, but Jeremy, remember you brought two guests.
Tell us about the guests because they were all in.
They were so nice.
Yes.
So a couple of friends of mine that I met back in February, I met them.
They were doing an extreme event and we kind of hit it off and we chatted a whole bunch,
about a whole bunch of different things and about four weeks prior to the event, I said,
hey, we're racing in New Jersey.
I know you said you were going to be up somewhere in Carolinas or something.
And it's just kind of a little quick hop, skipping and jump away.
So they were like, absolutely, we will be there.
100% will be there for the weekend.
So Karen, the nice Karen and Mike, they came up and spent the weekend with us.
And it was for them to get to know because he's really interested in coming to race.
So he wanted to see the lemons and he had some friends that had done lemons before.
And so they came up for the weekend to hang out and took a lot of pictures and had a lot of fun.
Well, right.
And the reason why I brought that up was because Karen ended up being our photographer for the entire weekend.
And we had like 100 plus pictures.
Oh yeah, it was great.
And then we and the other reason I brought it because we had Mike who just met us dress up as a fembot and end up performing with us.
Okay, it was brilliant.
It was brilliant.
It was so we did have a miss that I must have been in the car.
You were in the car.
Yeah, you missed the song.
The whole thing.
I did miss the song.
And then so Dr. Evil wasn't around.
So mini me single handedly destroyed the career of the apexers, the premature apexers.
They were debuting their new song and he realized that they were actually lip singing and pointed it out to the public.
So yeah, that was so Dr. Evil wasn't around to keep mini me from destroying their, their career.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, you know, they may have won HMG, but we didn't lip sync.
That's right.
Well deserved HMG as well.
Well deserved.
Oh, I love those guys.
They did fantastic.
So all joking aside, they did fantastic.
They deserved it.
If we did not lip sync aside, we got to stop the podcast.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Hefe.
Yes.
Trying to get back to the question that almost everybody diverted from.
Hefe, who did you play this weekend?
I was Dr. Evil.
Yes.
I had a normal race.
I shored my testicle.
I don't remember the line.
I'm sorry.
Freshly shorn.
Freshly shorn testicles.
Helmets, luge lessons, summers in Rangoon.
You must try it.
When he was insulin, we put him in a burlap bag and beat him with reeds.
That's right.
Yes.
So it was actually, it was actually pretty funny because one of the famous lines is
sharks with fricking laser beams.
And for those of you who don't know, I spent a couple of lemons weekends with a
shark puppet on my hand.
So I found the original shark puppet and with blue tape, taped a laser pointer on
it and basically had sharks with fricking laser beams.
It was excellent.
It was fantastic.
We also had inflatable sharks with lasers, but we never got to, there's a whole
bunch of different layers.
There is still plenty of meat left on the bone to redo this theme.
Oh, 100%.
Cause we were working on the car so much that we didn't, we didn't get to pull out all
the stuff.
Yeah.
We didn't really get to, we definitely would have won Halloween meets gasoline if we got
to pull out all the stuff.
I don't know.
There was some type of tough.
There was some good stuff, but I think our stuff would have been better.
It would have been tough.
I think, I think we could certainly be playing a little bit for the next one, but I think
something I want to really do is start the little pre-theming, right?
Like, you know how some of them released their album early and this and that where they
start to push in.
We, we should do something related to that.
So I'm all for that.
We're going to, we're going to kick ass and we're going to win.
I can feel it in my bones.
Yeah.
New Jersey is always a tough theming race.
So, and this year was, this year was a pretty dynamite.
Yeah.
And let's just be clear.
They're premature apexers.
They also picked up the, the pot lock.
Pot lock.
They did a karaoke.
They were, they were all, all over it.
That karaoke would have been dead without me though.
I sang like nine songs.
I'm just saying.
True.
That's true.
That's right.
You were quite, quite excellent when they were like a Zoroastrian named Vilma, ritualistically
shaving your testicles.
I mean, these are things you can't see anywhere else.
Darling.
Yeah.
Okay.
What's it?
Evil Zoroastrian?
Nick and Kevin, Nick and Kevin and those guys that premature apexers, they really did
kill it.
They did.
They really did.
They deserve it.
It was all the layers, you know, they're from there.
There's little storefront out front to, you know, to, to sell the, the band's merchandise
to the striper stage for their actual albums.
Yeah.
Like they, they're all their songs that they, they created.
Like it was, was phenomenal.
Yes.
All Lemons theme.
You know.
One of the songs was everything bagel.
Jersey very much themes hard.
They theme so hard.
Every year.
Every year.
They didn't even win HMG, did they?
Yeah, they did.
Because HMG went to the.
Italian job.
No, no.
No.
They won HMG.
No.
That was them.
They only got a striper guys.
That would be the, uh, Oh, they got IOE.
That's Sesame Street outlaws.
They got IOE.
They got IOE.
They always get IOE because of that stupid, whatever a Studebaker thing.
That's the first time the Studebaker won it.
Yeah, it is.
No, they've won it before.
Nope.
They've won it before, but now I'm a Studebaker.
Oh, Manny was telling me they went on with a Studebaker last year.
He was like, we want to try to win it again.
They won judges choice.
Yeah.
Okay.
That was the last.
That was the.
The Studebaker had run last year.
Didn't.
It was broken more than it was running.
Yeah.
They had won.
Cause Eric mentioned during the award ceremony that the Studebaker completed the perfect
a hundred percent.
All Studebakers that have run in lemons have won HMG.
I mean, not IOE.
So, uh, any other outstanding themes come into mind?
Anyone?
Anyone?
I thought it was hysterical that the Italian job brought a pulpit.
Oh, and the confessional again.
Oh my God.
They love those people.
They're so hilarious.
And they play and they come in with all the Naunas and they come into the potluck with
their own stuff and they present it in the middle and they make you all feel like you,
you know, like you could really be adopted by them.
It was, it was.
It makes you feel Italian for a week and every time you're in their paddock.
Yeah.
They blew up one motor.
They replaced it.
They blew it up again.
Oh my God.
There were some really great things there.
But they're going to Laguna Seca.
Maybe premature apexers.
Maybe.
So the only thing is, I believe they should be forbidden to win anymore awards until
Mike drives in the car.
Cause you know, all he's doing is just replacing axles and engines, axles and engines.
I got to see some driving skill.
I got to see him behind the wheel.
You know, none of this.
Well said, Bill.
Well, so you need to call them out.
Mono and mono.
The first year they came.
Right.
Yeah, Bill.
Yeah.
You and him have to be both getting the car.
I would if you guys would stop breaking the damn things.
Yeah.
Well, now I know how you feel, Bill.
Every time you go to get in it, something happens.
I know.
All right.
Well, Summit.
Man.
Summit.
So it's going to be the one.
Let's we're talking about who won.
Can I just mention that two Ford Fiesta's, the German one from the mid 80s, early 80s,
both won different awards.
Yeah.
Judges' choice went to late for tacos, which was a yellow, very stock looking.
It doesn't mean who don't remember.
Fiesta.
And Class C went to El Chubacabra, which was a Mexican flag looking Fiesta.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I guess they don't know it's German.
With a modern Fiesta motor, turbo motor in it.
I think it was a modern.
They said that they had such a great theme that they forgot to look under the hood.
Well, they were they were bribing them along the way and they forgot to look under the
hood at the same time.
If we seriously.
Yeah, yeah.
You'll bait and switch it.
Yeah.
And that car's been around a while and it's terrible, terribly slow.
It used to have a Kent motor in it.
Yeah, well, that's what came in it.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, but if we can say our car, if we can say our car was a fighter jet
and our car is British, we can't really say anything about them having Mexican flag.
Oh, no, no, I'm not against the Mexican flag.
You know, if their car wants to identify as a Mexican flag, then I'm not anybody to say
otherwise.
Yeah.
So you guys remember your your what was it the the the Colt?
What was it?
Your your first little German car, the Capri, the Fiesta replaced the Capri from
Ford of Germany.
They look so similar.
Well, they're a different body, but I'm aware.
Yeah, the Fiesta looks more like a gremlin than the Capri.
Yeah.
Yes, actually, I think had its roots in the Fiat,
the same one that they made the you go out of.
No, I mean, when you're going to try to emulate something, I think you go.
Let's just, you know, the Lamborghini, you go.
Well, the the you go was based on the same Fiat that the Fiesta was based on just later.
Fiat 29 sounds right.
But I don't I try not to remember those cars.
It hurts my head.
All right.
So next time you go into the track, ladies, this is a question.
Bring a car that doesn't that's not broke.
All right, let's try again.
The next time you go into the track is ladies.
Oh, sorry.
You know, it's I'm still questioning.
Yes.
Yes, I'm still questioning Thompson.
What's it what's Thompson answering if you're questioning it?
So just to see how things are before I commit to that at the moment.
OK.
You've only got three more weeks to commit.
Yeah.
OK.
I think I'm going to do it after July 4th week.
OK.
I can't do Thompson because I have to be in Huntsville.
So what's your plan?
I don't know.
I can't do Thompson.
I have to be in LA.
I think I think we're all planning on summit though, right?
Oh, I want to do summit so badly.
I really want so looking and I got to get back to the track even in between.
I got to find some D.E.
Day and get out there because I tell you I'm Jones in for some more track time right now.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'll actually already secured my seat in the Cressida for Thompson.
So nice.
Yeah.
And Jeremy, your next time on track is tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Yeah.
Last weekend I was at Pine View.
I went to NJMP.
Then I was at Pine View last weekend.
Today I'm at NC Car.
Next week I'll be at Pocono.
Excellent.
How is Pocono for a...
Sucks.
With extreme experience.
It's fun actually.
How much of the Trioval do they use?
We don't use any of the Trioval.
No, it's all on the internal course.
The internal road course.
Without using the oval is very flat and very boring.
It is.
But for extreme experience it's like...
It's really good.
It's got a little bit of everything.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's got a little bit of everything.
Sweeping corners and the way we cone it out.
It's got, you know, sweeping corners.
It's got the big long back straight away.
I mean, you can see some pretty good speeds there.
Yeah.
It's not a good course for lemons.
It's too narrow on the infield and all that.
There's no way.
It wouldn't be everything we'd want to do.
But for extreme experience, you're certainly not racing anybody.
Well, the transitions are the problem with coconut.
If the transition is better, it could be okay.
But the transitions are terrible.
Extreme avoids though.
So that's fine.
Yeah.
The SCCA uses a little bit of the oval and then in and out of the infield.
And some of the infield, yeah.
They use the part of the infield that is the widest part.
And it makes it real quick and easy to get around there.
But then we're going to Thompson.
I was supposed to go to Lime Rock Park, but we are only taking.
We're going to Thompson.
No, no, no.
No, for lemons.
With which team?
With my team.
Oh, okay.
You're bringing your car.
The monkey house.
Yeah, yeah.
Got it.
Are you going to pick up tonight?
I don't know.
I haven't talked to him about it yet.
We were supposed to go to Lime Rock Park,
but we were going to give champ car another shot this year.
And so far it hasn't worked out because they were only taking 40 cars for
Lime Rock Park.
And we were like number 66 that signed up.
And then we get, we got kind of put on hold for Thompson because we were
not quick enough again.
And so it's just become this big thing.
So I think we're going to cancel the four, the four champ car races that
we were going to try to go to this year.
But with lemons, we've got Thompson and we've got New Hampshire and
Summit.
And then we've got an AER sprinkled in there.
And then we've got a lucky dog sprinkled in there as well.
Which lucky dog you doing?
I think.
VIR.
No.
No.
Hey, Jeremy.
I don't know.
I'd have to look at the schedule.
Once the closest extreme experience gets to my neck of the woods,
the DC area.
Dominion.
Yeah.
September.
Really?
Dominion.
Dominion, September.
Okay.
Because I have a friend who always wanted to do that.
They're not doing Summit, whatever the other, the Jefferson.
I don't think we do Summit anymore.
Yeah, I don't think we do anymore.
I did Jefferson a couple of times with them.
I'm Eric.
Don't book anything until you talk to me.
Cause I have a discount code for you to use if you're going to book
something or anybody in here.
You know, I ain't going to ever do any of that stuff.
I talked to one of you guys.
The discount code is garage heroes.
No, I'm just kidding.
Yeah.
Garage heroes and training at gmail.com.
Exactly.
All right.
So ladies.
G hit loves extreme.
That's right.
That's a discount code.
That's right.
Or extreme loves G hit.
We never know, but they've never come on.
So I can't say that.
Um, ladies, we are overdue for another NJMP review.
So, uh, plan on freeing up your schedules when we are in North
Carolina or sooner.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
Bill, you guys going to do any DE?
Uh, yeah.
Try to do some, um, I, I don't know.
Miss Vicki keeps changing your mind.
So I don't know what she's doing, but we're going to get a couple in.
Well, let Eric, let Eric and I know cause I could do some,
some daily driver DEing.
Okay.
That'd be fun.
Yeah.
I don't want to get back.
My normal, my normal DE buddy has, uh, got, uh, in surgery.
You can't drive stick for like six weeks now.
So my next payment is my last payment on the Veloster end.
So you could start paying for my Cayman.
Uh, about to send us kid to college.
Yeah.
So that's a big negatory.
And if anybody is interested in a 2006 C6 Corvette with very low
miles, it is about to go on the auction block.
Yeah.
Let me think about that.
Nope.
Nope.
It's, it's old person spec because it was Jen's mother's car.
No, it's automatic with chrome wheels.
I totally get it.
So is it, is that one of those, is that one of those custom
Corvettes that's like one of one?
One of one.
It's, there's the only one that's lived in my driveway for the past
10 years and gotten 10,000 miles on it in 10 years.
That's the one to make sure.
That's the one that hasn't been in Cliff Clavin's kitchen, right?
Correct.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's the one.
So, uh, Carvana and, uh, CarMax, you're, you're on the block.
Your highest bid will get the car.
Have they given bid yet?
No, no, I, I, I'm going to, it's next week's project.
Got a vacation next week because my son is graduating high school
and a few other things.
Yay.
Congratulations.
You grow up so fast.
Yup.
When is graduation?
Thursday.
Oh my God.
So soon.
And Friday is the graduation party.
If anyone wants to come to the Putt Putt driving range in my town.
Is it a.
Putt Putt or is it one of those windmill Putt Putts?
Uh, what is a PPP?
The professional Putt Putters Association.
I have no idea what that is.
There's three, as far as I know, there's three approved Putt Putt
courses that are built to a certain specification and they are,
they are skill based as opposed to, you know, more or less fun.
No, this is more or less fun.
Yeah.
Bobby.
Anyway.
All right.
Cool.
Yup.
Good time had by all.
Thanks everybody for coming.
That was awesome.
Yeah.
Thank you all so much.
You guys are so awesome and it was so much fun to be at the track with
you.
Yeah.
Welcome on our team.
I suck at that.
Same thing with you, Jeff.
Yeah.
A little bit less heat.
A little bit less heat.
A little more vroom vroom was the only thing I would say for the
weekend.
The worst part was is every time we did something, we fixed
something.
Yeah.
Right.
And, and, and we were, we were that close.
It just took a couple.
We fixed it.
We fixed it.
It just, it just took a couple of stakes.
There's always one more thing.
We were, we were in order of stakes away from fixing it and leaving
it in the hands of Dr. Honda.
Yup.
Excellent.
All right.
Thank you everybody.
Always fun.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thanks guys.
See you on the next time.
Exactly.
Adios.
Yeah.
About this episode
Garage Heroes In Training recaps their NJMP race weekend with a running theme of being “a bit late” and scrambling last-minute logistics. They explain why the car arrived with unresolved problems, then walk through frantic diagnostics—cam timing, broken intake/sensor wiring, and a methodical “decision tree” approach. The weekend swings from near-ready chaos to a late fix, followed by on-track stories about noise, lag, and even iconic K-turn judging moments. They close by looking ahead to more NJMP reviews and upcoming “lemons” schedules.
Original notes
GHiT 0764: GHiT's NJMP Race Weekend - A Bit Late
Rumor has it that there was a race a few weeks back at NJ Motorsports Park (NJMP) with the 24 Hours of Lemons. The racing was great, but the theming was really some of the best we have ever seen. Oh yeah, we were there too. Here are some of the stories from the weekend.
Did we miss something? Please let us know at [email protected]
A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/LemonsNJMP2026
We hope you enjoy this episode!
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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