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Talking NHRA with Fox Sports/Car Guy Brian Lohnes and a review of the Mini Cooper S convertible
Talking NHRA with Fox Sports/Car Guy Brian Lohnes and a review of the Mini Cooper S convertible
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About this episode
Brian Lohnes, a prominent NHRA announcer, shares insights on the thrilling world of drag racing, including record-breaking speeds and the excitement of the upcoming U.S. Nationals. He discusses his journey in the sport, from racing with his father to becoming a leading voice in drag racing broadcasts. The episode also touches on the evolution of car shows, the impact of low-mileage vehicles, and the importance of engaging new fans in motorsports. Lohnes emphasizes the physical demands on drivers and the unique experience of attending drag races, making it a captivating listen for automotive enthusiasts.
Topics:
nhra drag racing
brian lohnes
record speeds
us nationals
car shows
low mileage vehicles
driver fitness
fan engagement
In this episode we talk with one of those people who is living his dream. Brian Lohnes is a YouTuber, Podcaster, Blogger and lead NHRA booth broadcaster for Fox Sports. We also review the Mini Cooper S Convertible and talk with our listener family including Jim who drove over 60 miles to meet me at the Plymouth MA seaside festival. My radio family is the best!
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Now, here's John Paul, The Car Doctor.
Good Sunday morning everyone and welcome to another edition of the Car Doctor program
where I know Talking Birds with Ray Brown is really Jesse Wilkins' favorite program.
But, you know, he makes me feel good when he says it, so.
Yeah, that's right.
We'll just go with that.
Hey, we have a great guest on today.
We have a guy that I've known for quite a few years, I guess now, Brian Lones.
And I'm reading something that says, it says, Brian Lones, plain and simple,
I love things with tires on them.
Brian, good morning and welcome back to the Car Doctor program.
Good morning, John.
Thanks for having me on, man.
Hope things are good.
Yeah, yeah.
Hope things are good, man.
Absolutely.
You know, you just came back from like a whirlwind tour.
What have you been up to?
Yeah, I've been running around.
It's a fairly hot and heavy drag racing season.
So, I've been kind of all over the country the last month from Boise, Idaho to Seattle
and Sonoma and was just in Indianapolis last week for the unveiling of the new
timing tower at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
We're heading this week for the U.S. Nationals.
Biggest drag race in the world.
And before we get on to that, you know, drag racing speeds now are crazy.
What was the latest record breaking speed?
Yeah.
So, Brittany Forrest went 343 miles an hour in Sonoma this year,
which was a reset.
It's the all-time speed record in the sport.
So, it's been pretty wild this year.
There's been a really kind of big escalation in speeds.
Funny cars repeatedly going over 340.
But Brittany 343 brought the house down out there in California.
It really was pretty stunning because we never see, especially this day and age,
we don't see speed records broken by multiple miles an hour anymore.
And she crushed it by two miles an hour out there at Sonoma.
So, it was wild.
I'm all over the place this morning, like Jesse is apparently.
So, tell us a little bit about your history and how you get into this.
I read something about you were sleeping in your car for a while,
kind of going back and forth between towers.
Not Jay Leno style, but yeah, I was back in the day.
I would go up for the weekend and, you know, my college, I went to UMass.
So, I was traveling a couple hours back and forth to the track.
So, I was just started to stay and sleep in the cabin of my truck overnight.
And then the track operator let me sleep inside the gate,
which was a big upgrade.
So, yeah, I started locally and, you know, like Mike Joy.
Mike Joy started down in Connecticut at Stafford Springs
and some of the other Connecticut tracks.
And he ultimately became the guy who's the lead broadcaster for NASCAR on Fox.
And it's kind of cool that we get two New England guys on the two big series.
Yeah, it really is.
And you dabbled in a little bit of drag racing too, right?
Yeah.
I raced with my dad back in the day and my dad still races.
He actually just, just a weekend or two weekends ago,
just wanted to race up in Canada.
So, he's still at it.
And I was so good at it, I started to drive a microphone.
So, that was my, I promoted myself right out of the driver's seat there.
But that was a lot of fun.
And I raced with him for several years when I was growing up.
And, you know, maybe reaction time killed you as a drag racer.
Certainly not reaction time, not reaction time on the microphone.
You are super quick on the mic.
Yeah, I think that's just, you know, it's like conditioned response.
I guess over the course of time, you know, I've watched this stuff now for half my life.
So, you know, you kind of get yourself mentally prepared for what's going on
and you try to give people a real time kind of analysis of what's happening.
So, it's one of the most fun parts of, I guess, the job is kind of being on my toes
and waiting for the unexpected to happen in front of us.
It's, you know, between stuff blowing up and being on fire.
And it's been a heck of a season and we've seen our fair share of craziness.
So, it always keeps me on my toes.
And you have some really good lines when stuff happens.
You know, like somebody's really, really fast or something blows up.
And, you know, and those, I assume just come out of the ether somewhere.
But you do it amazingly well.
Yeah, thank you.
You know, I love to read.
So, there's a lot of times I'll run across some interesting phraseology in a book
or something like that and make a note for myself.
But I never, you really can't crowbar that stuff in.
You kind of have it floating around in the back of your head.
So, if something does happen, you can use it.
But it's impossible to try to script out something because it just sounds,
you know, it sounds really forced.
And every once in a while, you'll be watching sports and there'll be a,
you know, whether it's play by play guy or reporter that clearly has something
that they've wanted to say the whole time and whether the moment fits or not,
they're just going to say it anyway.
And it'll make you cringe if it's not, you know, it doesn't fit right.
It doesn't work.
So, yeah, I think for me, I just, I try to, I take a lot of notes between races
and stuff.
And if I run across things that are interesting, I just,
I try to commit them to some part of my memory where I can pull them up pretty quick.
Yeah, I know, you know, I've watched you do this before.
And, you know, and like you said, you know, sometimes you kind of wonder,
you're watching somebody talking or doing something and you kind of say,
well, how long you've been holding that one up to use, you know?
And it's great when it just comes out naturally and you seem to,
you seem to be really good at that.
Tell us, you know, you're in the booth with Tony Pedragan.
Who else are your sort of teammates?
So, you know, Tony's the, so if I'm the play by play guy,
Tony's the kind of color analyst and then, you know,
I work with guys like David Freiberger who's been a great friend of mine for
20 years, like one of the ultimate car guys in the country.
He's joined our broadcast team this year, working about half the schedule.
Bruno Massel is a guy that a lot of people know from shows like the
Rog Squad and Truck U.
He's a four time world champion drag racer in a class called
Competition Eliminator.
Nobody else has ever done that before.
So, he's a great friend, a great reporter.
Amanda Busek, if you watch, you know, sports car racing or you watch
the NASCAR Truck Series, you'll see her dabbling in that stuff as well.
And Jordan Vanagreff's a young top fuel driver that's between rides right now
and he's been working with us the last couple of seasons.
And it's a really, you know, it's a good group of people.
I mean, when you make these shows, there's 75 or 80 people involved
to make these things and, you know, people see three or four of us
over the course of the broadcast, but there's, you know,
literally dozens of people making these things happen.
It's a wild process.
Yeah, I remember you had a program on before.
You've had a couple of programs, right?
You had a kind of a, you know, run what you brung kind of race.
And you also had kind of, was it your version of like Two Guys
Garage or something like that?
Yeah, it was actually, yeah, really what it was was the,
it technically was Two Guys Garage as it kind of moved forward.
It was like Shade Tree mechanic back in the day with, you know,
Sam and Olo and those guys and I was on what would have been
the third or fourth kind of iteration of that same show.
I kind of came in after Sam retired and I did that show
for several years.
We shot it down in Johnson City, Tennessee.
I worked with a guy named John Gardner,
a super good guy, a great mechanic.
And yeah, it was that type of show.
We did, you know, parts installs.
We looked at new products and did all that type of stuff.
And yeah, the other show was called Put Up or Shut Up.
And you can still find it.
If you have Amazon Prime, you can look it up.
And we made a couple of seasons of that.
It was a racing show.
And the premise was that we would find two, you know,
we would either do interesting styles of racing like,
you know, big rig drag racing with these hot rod or big rigs
or, you know, we'd go out to circle tracks and pit,
you know, two different styles of cars against each other
that normally didn't race,
but ran about the same lap times.
And we had a lot of fun.
I mean, we did some pretty crazy stuff.
We drag raced pulling tractors on that show
with multiple engines on them side by side.
Nobody had ever done that before.
It was a lot of fun.
Yeah, it was.
And I remember talking to you about it.
You said, and you talk about crews,
I think you said your GoPro crew had like a dozen people in it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We did a private organization show years ago for Facebook.
When Facebook, Facebook Watch first started,
they were doing all this original programming.
And we did a show, a series.
It was called the $3,000 Hoopty Challenge.
And we shot it at Tucson Dragway.
And we had a massive crew on that show.
We made four or five episodes all in the span of a couple of days.
And yeah, there were like 20 people GoPro and cars up and down.
I mean, it was a, it was a huge production.
And again, you can still,
you can find that on Facebook.
If you love like Jalopy style racing
and it was a very kind of fun irreverent show.
But yeah, the $3,000 Hoopty Challenge
Yeah.
Those kind of things always sort of appeal to me
because it seems like, you know,
that's the kind of stuff you can wrench in your driveway
and make it work.
Oh yeah.
And you know, it was kind of a funny show to make
because the initial couple episodes were Fryberger and I
basically picking the cars that we're going to race.
And our job was to determine whether the thing was actually
worth $3,000 or if it was worth, you know, too much money,
which is kind of the opposite of every other show in the world
where you want to find the good cars.
We were looking for the worst junk we could find
to make sure it was, you know, kind of accurate.
So it was a blast to make that.
Yeah.
Do you have any thoughts on, you know,
the motor trend channel going away?
And I mean, is that just a sign of the times money wise
that, you know, they just couldn't, you know,
those kind of programs just couldn't keep going?
Yeah.
I mean, the Warner Brothers discovered a thing
that real difficult for motor trend.
And, you know, it's unfortunate.
They were a byproduct of a lot of, like,
media consolidation going on right now.
But I think the good thing that's happened here
is that Motor Trend Hot Rod, those brands got bought by Hearst.
And Hearst is a magazine media company.
They're not a television production, you know,
business or a movie production business
that owned a magazine or a couple of brands.
So you're going to start to see,
and I would not expect to see it back
on, you know, regular TV as its own channel,
you're going to start to see a load of new cool car shows
coming out of that Hearst side of things
as they get more into the video stuff.
And that's going to be like,
you're going to find all that stuff
on, like, the Motor Trend YouTube channel
and stuff like that.
And, you know, I know Mike Alimi
is the brand director for Hot Rod
was able to kind of navigate the company
and the brand through some tough times
that Warner Brothers discovered
and they have a way better future
in front of them now than they did
before they left that.
So, yeah, it stinks to lose the Motor Trend channel,
but at the same time, you know,
a lot of the people that made those shows
are doing their own thing on YouTube.
They're doing their own thing here and there.
So it's still out there.
You just got to go look for it.
Yeah, I know, I know personally,
you know, I think it was just this weekend,
you know, Freiberger had, you know,
I've been on YouTube for a year
and this is what I learned sort of thing.
Yeah.
And, you know, he hinted around that,
you know, coming up with the engine masters
type of show could come back again.
He likes, like you, he likes history.
And I think is there kind of a running race
of who's been to the most abandoned drag strips?
Yeah, he and I have a pretty good head-to-head battle going.
I still have them by just because of the nature of my job,
I still have them by a pretty wide margin,
but he's chipping away at them.
So my lead was once like 80 or 90 tracks
and I think it's down to 40 or 50 overall now.
So I need to get back on the horse there
and stretch it back out again.
But you're right, you kind of look around
and I guess I spend way too much time on YouTube,
but you kind of look around and, you know,
Freiberger's doing what he's doing with his channel,
Mike Finnegan's doing what he's doing with his channel.
There is, there's a lot of really good car content
out there for people.
They just have to look for it
and look in a little bit different place for it.
Yeah.
And you get to find what you like.
I mean, you know,
whether if you're into the traditional hot riding stuff,
those two guys are great.
I mean, there's so many guys out there
doing great content with, you know,
different styles of cars and whether it's the European stuff
or guys just building crazy things like, you know,
Cletus McFarland and all his antics.
It really is something out there for everybody.
And again, if you put in,
you put in the extra five minutes to jump on,
you know, the search thing and look up what you like,
you're going to find it.
Now did Cletus close his track for a month or so
to do some renovations to it?
Yeah.
They closed the drag ship because one,
it's the middle of summer in Florida
so it's reasonable down there anyway,
but they did a bunch of upgrades.
They paid a bunch of stuff,
upgraded a bunch of the infrastructure, bathrooms.
So yeah, he's, you know,
the great thing about that guy is he's the type of guy
that puts, you know, money,
his money goes where his mouth is.
So, you know, he, when he became a fully,
you know, vested partner in the drag strip,
he owned the circle track that's basically attached
to the drag strip.
But once he got in with the drag strip,
he made major investments there to improve it
for everybody.
So it's great.
And he's what, like 30 years old, right?
Basically, yeah, I think he's right around 30.
Yeah, 30 owns a bunch of helicopters,
owns the racetracks, owns an airport.
Yeah, he's done pretty well for himself.
Yeah.
Just like you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm still waiting on that airport.
I'm going to buy at some point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But when you look at drag racing and,
you know, and I think with me,
I don't know, maybe it's my ADD or something.
I really enjoy drag racing because it's quick.
I, you know, it's, you know, for me to watch,
you know, you know, NASCAR, I get a little bit bored.
But for me to watch, me to watch,
and I still like, I still like NASCAR,
but I love the behind the scenes part of NASCAR
more than the actual racing part.
But for me, watching drag racing is,
it's just, it's, first off, in-person experience
can't, you know, you have to do it at least once
if you like it.
Exactly.
Fannie, I would tell people,
if you have just any passing interest in cars
and, you know, I'm not looking to make you
a lifelong fan here,
but if you have any interest in cars,
you owe it to yourself to just attend a,
attend a national drag race once
just to get the idea of what these things
sound and feel like
because it is a really unique experience.
Like I've been to a bunch of NASCAR races
and they are awesome,
but like you don't get the access to the pit area.
You don't see the guys rebuilding the engines.
And of course the noise is just beyond description.
So it does get every single one of your senses.
That's a fact.
Yeah.
And, you know, these drivers are crazy athletes, too.
To be able to absorb,
what is it, like nine Gs of deceleration or something?
Yeah, upwards of seven.
Yeah.
So they see in the middle of a really good run,
a driver will see like six and a half to seven Gs positive
and then really less than two seconds later,
there'll be six and a half to seven Gs negative
when the parachutes hit.
So that's why you see these very fit people get out of a car
that they've driven for really under acceleration
less than five seconds
and they're all winded and out of breath.
And these are, like you said, these are fit people.
They are trained.
They do all the stuff,
but it legitimately knocks the wind out of you
every single time you pull the chute.
Yeah.
And it's not just drag race.
I mean, you know, go back to NASCAR.
You know, the idea of anybody who's ever done anything
like I don't know, you know, down here in a couple of weeks
on Cape Cod, there's going to be a go-kart race for charity,
the sea side of the lines.
And great little races at Mashpee Commons.
It's a lot of fun to watch.
It's free to watch.
But, you know, you get in one of those go-karts
and do like 30 laps are exhausted when you get out.
Well, yeah.
Now, the endurance that it takes,
even, you know, in modern stock car racing,
those guys don't get enough credit because,
and you know, we've seen it over the last couple of years,
people getting out of the cars with heat stroke
and extreme dehydration and all that stuff.
I mean, the interior temperatures of those things
are way over 100 degrees and you're doing it for hours.
And yes, they have power steering,
but that doesn't take the G-load off your body
from constantly cornering.
And, you know, we've actually seen some drag racers
over the course of the last couple of years
have, you know, heat exhaustion issues
and stuff like that.
And it is a, it's a funny thing to say.
It's a very physically taxing thing.
And when we get to Indy this week,
it's, you know, longest race of the year.
We start racing at Indy on Wednesday
and we don't finish till the following Monday
and there'll be about a thousand cars there
of all the different classes.
And, you know, you see people bouncing around on Wednesday
when we get there and you see a lot of people
with drag and knuckles and drooping eyelids,
but as fast as we get finished on Monday afternoon.
Yeah, I was amazed and only because
I've known him for years and years
and I think you know Dale Quarterly, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
You know, he ran, he ran the Craftsman Truck Race
and then an hour later ran the Arca Race.
And I'm like, he's 62 years old.
How did he do that?
Yeah, some of these guys are just built different, man.
Just built different.
It is the Indy fatigueable.
Yeah.
Yeah, it really is.
Four wide.
What's your thoughts on that?
I happen to really like four wide.
Yeah, you know, it cuts both ways.
A lot of people dislike it for the first time ever
for this year.
We usually have our four wide races in the spring
one in Vegas, one in Charlotte.
Those are the only two wide, four wide tracks we have.
And normally when we go to Charlotte in the fall,
part of what we call the countdown of the championship,
which is the playoff season of NHRA drag racing.
Normally it's the two wide race
and for the first time ever,
we're going to have a four wide race
in this countdown portion of the year.
And listen, the reality of the situation is
when we went from two wide to four wide racing
in Vegas in the spring,
the crowd basically tripled.
So when we have the four wide race in Charlotte
in the spring, the crowd is at least twice the size
of the two wide race.
So, you know, the reality is people love watching it.
And, you know, at the end of the day,
as a spectator sport,
you have to do what spectators want to see,
whether it's, whether people like it or not,
they're going to come compete.
And we want the spectators to come see them.
So it's, to me, it's a pragmatic decision.
And it's like, you got to do what you got to do.
And clearly they're voting with their dollars
and their eyeballs.
And if you like smoke and noise
and the smell of drag racing,
having four cars at one time
must be like having fighter jets fly over your head.
Yeah, it's one of those things
when you see a two wide race,
you don't think it can possibly get any louder.
And then all of a sudden four of them are up there
and it'll, I mean, it is,
if you're close enough to them,
it is verging on the painful.
If you're on the starting line,
when four of them go off at the same time,
any sort of ability of mind
to describe what it feels like.
It's just this high frequency vibration,
the noise, the smoke, the fumes,
the nitro engines, it's just, it's wild.
Do you have a favorite track?
Do you have one that you go to
and you're like, this is, this is the one I,
you know, I love the, oh yeah.
New England Dragway, I love Effing
because it's like going to Fenway Park.
I love the Red Sox and, you know,
going to those two places are special.
But, you know, to me, other than that,
there's so much history.
The race is, you know,
the oldest continuous drag race in the world
and it's been going since 55
and it's just, it's the biggest,
most important race we have
and I just love the fact that
we just have this big unveiling
of a brand new timing tower,
the facilities getting upgraded
in phases, it's really fantastic.
Street Outlast type
car channel racing, what do you think?
You know, it's had
I think when we look at, you know,
it's what we would classify as what we call
no prep style drag racing.
So that style of drag racing is still
pretty popular around the country.
It's just not popular in the way that
those guys were doing it.
Like once the show went off the year,
you know, the whole kind of genre
around those specific guys kind of fell
off a little bit, but there's,
there's a lot of no prep style racing
going on around the country.
A lot of young guys like to do it
in those places open. It gives people something to do.
It's productive and it keeps them off the streets.
I'm for it.
Yeah, I, you know, whenever
you get new people interested
in like you pointed out, you know,
plain and simple, you know,
you love, you love things with
tires on them and anytime you can get
people interested in that, I think
is a phenomenal thing and
you know, whether it's, you know, young people
that are racing, you know,
you know, what we call
you know, imports back then,
you know, you know, when you
see somebody tuning a
Supra with a laptop and it's,
you know, 900 horsepower, it's
pretty impressive.
It is. And it's the same stuff, you know, guys
did it 50 years ago with a screwdriver, the same
job that that kid's doing with a laptop. So it's, you know,
as much as people want to talk about how much
everything's changed, the reality of the situation is
the only thing that's changed is just the tools you use.
I mean, still a lot of,
you know, testing two nights at the drag strip,
and they were in the 70s with Grudge Night. You show up
there with your stuff, maybe both a set of slicks on
and see how fast you can go. The car
looked different and the technology is different, but it's
still the same game. And hope it doesn't break
so you can drive home. That's a fact.
That is an absolute fact.
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's
it's really good. It's really
good. And again, I think
you know, whenever,
you know, whatever we can do to
encourage people to
really enjoy motorsports, I think
is great. And
what you do,
you do such a good job
announcing the races.
But also, you have your own
sort of history channel too.
You have your own podcast that you do
before we let you go.
Tell us a little bit about that and where people can find it.
Yeah, so I have
like everybody else these days, I guess, I have a
YouTube channel. It's just my name, Brian Lones,
if you search that. And I do
historical documentaries on
race cars. I do it on engines.
You know, I just, I did a long
video on the history of the
Oppenhauser engine. It's not just drag racing stuff.
It's all different motorsport stuff.
Even some non-motor sports stuff. I did one about
the New England
Timber Reclamation
Administration or New England Timber Salage
Administration after the hurricane of 1938.
It's a fantastic
story about all these millions of acres
of forest that got blown over, how the
government worked with, you know, local
lumbermen and all the local communities to
save all this wood and not, you know, crush the
market. So, you know, I love stories like
that that highlight, you know,
teamwork and create a problem
solving. And a lot of that stuff translates back
to racing. So you can find that on YouTube
or if you listen to podcasts, you can go to the
dork emotive podcast, which is basically
that's another kind of thing that I
do. And that's just an audio deal.
So if you want to listen to some of the car about,
you know, racing history, mechanical history, even
the history of Ferris wheels, I got that too.
Yeah, you have a pretty
wide range of things
that you talk about, which I think makes it
really interesting and
you know,
I don't know, it's just
you're bordering a workaholic, I think.
Yeah, I think, you know, for me
that's, you know, my enjoyment is
making these things. I enjoy it.
I guess it's a, you call it a hobby,
you can call it a second job, you can call it
if you want, but I really enjoy the research
element of it. And then, you know, assembling
the story and putting some out to people
like Washington. So it's
my way to chill
out and relax, I guess. When you're on vacation,
do you still find yourself going
to, I don't know, car museums
or local cruise nights or stuff like that?
You know, it depends on what we're
doing. If we're somewhere to see cool stuff
and there's something that doesn't drag everybody too far
out of the way, yes. I mean, you know, we've
hit places like the Henry Ford Museum,
the Museum of the United States Air Force,
you know, there's a lot of great
places to visit and enjoy
a day that can take you through
either history or just cool stuff. So yeah,
I mean, I'm never too far away from what I
guess you'd say. Yeah, every time I drive
by the Don Garlet's Museum, I keep saying to
my wife, we gotta pull in, we gotta pull in.
But it hasn't happened yet. Check it out, man.
And he's in there too. I mean, he'll be
94 years old and he looks like he's
about 65 and he'll be walking around
the museum and he'll be glad to talk
to you about anything you can bring up. He
is one of the most incredible people I've
ever met and he is a gift to still have
around. Yeah, he really is. I think he
lives across the street.
Yeah, his house is on the property. Yeah.
Yeah, he built that. He built
that whole thing with his house on the property
back in the early 80s. Yeah, I thought so, yeah.
No, I met him, I don't know,
20 years ago and
you know, he had
you know, he has
Popeye arms and he still does it, 90
something years old. Yeah, he was just,
there was footage of him putting together
two Emmy last week and he's winging
those, you know, iron cylinder heads around
that weigh like 100 pounds of piece like they're nothing
and he does, he's got a set of
four arms on it, probably still tear a telephone
book in half, it's amazing. I know it
really is. So,
Brian, if people want to catch you this
weekend, I mean this week coming up
or weekend coming up, how do they do that?
Sure. So, our coverage,
you know, if you want to just watch
Drag Racing starting on Wednesday,
you're going to be able to watch
live. If you go to any of these YouTube pages, all
the sportsman qualifying that's going on, that's going to
be streamed for free and then starting on
Sunday we have multiple shows on
FS1 and then on Monday
our elimination show will be from
2 to 5 p.m. on, if you're in the
Boston market, it will be Fox 25, it will be
on the network from 2 to 5 p.m. Monday
and that will be the
70, what, 73rd
running at the U.S. Nationals, so it's going to be
awesome. Yeah, it really
sounds like a good time, it sounds like a good time
to, you know, spend, watch
some racing, get your kids
involved in it, let them watch it.
Yeah, no, it's
fantastic. Brian, thanks for taking
some time out of your Sunday and joining us on the car
dog. Thanks, John. Alright, take care, Brian.
Be good man, I'll see you. See you.
Alright, that was Brian Lones,
just
an overall car guy,
you know, but an overall car guy
that he may be, he may be
right there with one of the most famous
people now, you know, just
a good guy.
I met him, I think I met him
20 years ago maybe at some
tire testing event that was going
on and
you know, and he became a member of the New England
Motor Press Association when he's not
at races, I see him at meetings
so, but he's
amazing
how he's got to where he is
and it isn't because
he's really, really good at it. Why don't we take
a break, pay some bills. My name is John Paul, this is a
car dog to program. If you want to join us, our phone
number is 781-837-4900
when we come back, I want to talk
about the Mini Cooper
fun, frustrating, all of that.
You're listening to the car dog
program at 959-WATD, we'll be right back.
Even
car geeks and do-it-yourselfers rely
on AAA to give them extra
peace of mind on the road. AAA offers
24-7 roadside assistance,
whether you're in your own vehicle, a friend's car
or even a rental. Combine that with great
rates of insurance, hotel, gas
and buying savings and discounts on
8700 brands
and you're covered on and off the road.
Get a special membership offered today
at AAA.com
slash join. That's
AAA.com
slash join.
August 19th, 1998,
Bob Murphy finally took a vacation.
You just can't put in 18-hour days forever.
So Bob loaded up the tents, the
fishing poles, the firewood camp stove,
the steaks, the soda, the beer, mattresses,
sleeping bags, lanterns, and the canoe.
It all fit neatly into the big van,
even the canoe, except
it was sticking out the back a little too far.
Bob's daughter Mandy warned him,
Dad, it's going to hit the windshield.
Ah, just a little bit more, honey.
It'll be alright. Bob's a gentleman
but he is human.
So let's just say that Daddy
doesn't usually say those things
and we can add that tiny will come
to your home, your work,
or your campsite and fix your windshield.
I'm Peter Brown of Tiny and Sun's
Autoglass in Pembroke.
If your windshield is broken, just call
1-888-64-TINIES
and thank you.
Hi there, it's
Paul Kibillion from Kibillion's Car Care
at 104 Maddox case and street in Pembroke.
Vacation season is here
and the time to take care of your car is now
before those road trips.
Kibillions is always here to make sure
you're road ready. To schedule an appointment
call 781-834-6558.
Find us
at 104 Maddox case and street in Pembroke.
Or find us online at Kibillion's Car Care
dot com.
Thanks a million, Mr. Kibillion!
Won't you step into the light?
Hi, I'm Dan Chauvin.
Step into the light and tune into
Twilight Showcase Radio, hosted by
Sandy Stride and Keith James
on 959 WATD
and 959WATD.com.
Search for
Twilight Showcase on Facebook
and visit twilightshowcase.org.
Twilight Showcase
Tonight from 8 to 10
on 959 WATD.
Make an appointment
Sunday morning at 11
for John Paul, the car doctor
on 959 WATD.
Now, back to the car doctor.
And welcome back to the car doctor
program. If you would like to
join us, our phone number is
781-837-4900.
If you want to hang on the phone
with Bill, we'll get to you in just
a minute, Bill. I want to talk about
the 2025
Mini Cooper S
and the one I
drove was a convertible.
And the Cooper S means
it's a little bit more powerful.
It uses a 7-speed dual clutch
transmission.
Oddly, it doesn't have
manual shifting capability,
which seems like it would
have paddle shifters, but it doesn't.
But it is a
fun little car. It certainly is.
It's got a 2-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder engine.
It's about 200 horsepower,
a little bit more torque, I think,
220 or so foot-pounds of torque.
Go to 0 to 60 in
6.5 seconds, which
today isn't
supercar fast, but still
fast enough.
The transmission shifts smooth.
Again, no paddle shifters,
which seems a bit odd. You can put it
into L for a sporty
shift map, but it's not
and, you know, as much
as paddle shifters are nice, I still like
a real transmission
with a real clutch pedal.
My neighbor happens to have a Cooper S.
It's an older one. I think it's a 2014
or 15 or something like that.
And it is about the same engine,
but it's actually a manual, which makes
it more fun to drive.
It's still a go-kart, no matter how you look at it.
Dodge through corners,
it's a lot of fun to drive.
I read somewhere it's not
as raw as older models.
I think that's good, because
the older ones that I drove all seem to break.
Is it an English car?
Well, it's
really a BMW.
Mini Cooper was English,
but today these are more
BMW design.
I put on Facebook
it's fun and frustrating. One of the reasons is
it has a 9.5 inch
circular
touchscreen.
And it's kind of retrofuturistic,
if that makes any sense. So it looks
the display is old, but because
it's
OLED instead of LED, I guess.
It makes
it look more
modern. It's just
aggro. You go to
adjust the climate control
or the next thing you know the
seat heater is on.
You go to try to change the radius.
It looks really good.
Functionality
not so good.
At least with me, maybe you get used to it.
The seats I
found were really comfortable. Rear seats are
well
they have one.
They have rear seats.
Bags maybe
with the front seats move forward,
maybe kids maybe
even with the top down
I don't think adults
you'd have to be a bunch of
you'd have to be really squished in there.
It has a clever
two-stage opening top
which
it can open like a
sunroof so you can keep
part of it open and then if you want
the whole top comes down.
I found that
to work better
in theory than in reality
and maybe if you're shorter it's fine
but I found when I opened up the top
in sort of sunroof mode
it was too much
blowing around inside the cabin
I just found it
annoying so I put the top all the way down
which I really liked. It is a
really good
top down car.
Top goes down pretty quick
like I said the turbo works
good it's got a
indicator in it I think it's in the go-kart mode
tells you how many horsepower it's using
and it still goes as you know we talk about
horsepower a lot
60 miles an hour
you only need about 10 horsepower to maintain
that 60 miles an hour so
it is
you don't need a million horsepower
but the 200 horsepower does
make it feel really good
you know this falls into the car
the saying of
life's too short to drive boring cars
this is not a boring car
you know when
the world is full of kind of
dull and boring
SUVs and crossovers now there's some really
good ones that aren't dull and boring
but if you want to
feel comfortable you want to drive something that's fun
you want to drive something that handles well
you can
put up with kind of the cheeky
tech savvy
interior pieces
I think it's a good choice
you won't get to
shift the gears by yourself
but you'll get to drive it
it feels fun to drive
it's easy to park
I went to the Plymouth
yesterday where
I got to meet Jim from North Reading
he came down and we'll talk to Jim in just a minute
but
there was a
million people in Plymouth yesterday
and Jesse I'm not exaggerating a million people
in Plymouth and
you know finding a parking space was hard
I'm glad I had this Mini Cooper
because there was one parking
space and an N parking lot
you know way down at the other end
of where the WATD
tent was
and most people tried to fit in
it couldn't fit in it because there was a
SUV on one side kind of parked
on the line and a Ford
van on the other side
and people drove by the spot tried to edge
their way in it couldn't open the doors
I was happy to be in the Mini Cooper
where I could get in, get out
and finally found a parking space
so it was good
so that's the Mini Cooper S
again it's vibrant, it's
wind in your hair, it's fun to drive
it can be a little aggravating
but I guess like all things
you take a little bit of, you take a lot of the good
with a little bit of the aggravation
and you end up good at the end
let's talk to Bill and Maldon
Bill good morning
good morning John
how are you?
pretty good, pretty good
I have a
kind of
hoping you run into the situation
before
the vehicle I'm driving
it's a 2013
and it's about to turn 140,000
on the clock this week probably
and
it's going to need some work
I'm looking at brakes and a lot of suspension work
but in the interim
I've become aware of several vehicles
the same year
and one that's a 14
and two of them
have over 100,000 miles
less than the car I'm driving
I haven't
seen these vehicles because they don't believe it
one has 28,000
claimed and the other has
19,000
what kind of car is it?
the car I'm driving
is a 2013 Lincoln
MKS
and I think value wise
these things have just
dropped off the marketplace
but
if those mileage could be
substantiated
my question John
would it be worth buying one of those cars
and foregoing the repairs that this car is going to need?
yeah I mean
as an example
the one with the
a little bit higher mileage
what are they looking to get for that?
I think 20,000
that's a 2014
it's the exact
everything I have
all the options
to drive itself to a pocket
but all these
things I've never used
and
and the question always becomes
you look at your car
and try to determine
its value
and you go
to my car with
$15,000
if I put it into it
how long is my car going to last
with
100,000 more miles on it than these cars have
my concern
always is with
a
12 year old or 13 year old car
that only has
15,000, 20,000, 30,000 miles on it
how was it taken
care of in those 13 years?
did it still get the oil
did it still get the oil change regularly?
I mean it is possible that
this is a sedan
people didn't drive them as much
somebody just
it was a short distance driver
but on the other hand lack of use
in some cases is worse
than abuse for a car
so sometimes when you buy a low mileage car
depends where it was stored
depends how it was driven
that can be a problem
some of these cars had the 3.5
turbo
some of them had the 3.7 in them
the turbo would
worry me a little bit
because it had some problems with them
is yours the turbocharged one or the non-turbocharged one?
yes
in fact John one of them has been replaced
I forget how many thousand miles to go
and that would
that would even concern me on the low miles cars
because
depending on how they were driven
and depending on
oil changes
all kinds of things
mechanical parts
don't like sitting still
and if somebody said
I drive the car once a week
for about 30 miles a week
it's probably perfect
for somebody who drove it every day
for a mile a day
those are the ones that can be problems
I mean you've already addressed
one of the biggest issues
that lack of use is almost as bad as overuse
and of course
getting one of those vehicles wouldn't preclude
it having all the problems I have
with this one over the years
that's right, suspension wise
that can
that's as much age related
as miles related
and even some of the little
nuisancey things
switches that
act up and components
that act up
those things can go bad just because of age
as much as use
something like
internally the climate control system
one of the little motors that opens and closes
events which can turn into
a nightmare repair
they can go bad just from sitting too
very good, I'm still
at that point where I'd love to see these cars
just to see how they
represent themselves
but
we'll just have to let it go for now
there you go
I think it's a shame
that Lincoln stopped making sedans
I think
Lincoln
they were
like Cadillac
they built
really good cars and the idea
that they did away with things like
whether it's something like the MKS
or something like a town car
that's what
they were known for
solid cars
and sedans and the idea that
oh I'm going to go buy a Lincoln but it's an SUV
well
nobody wants an SUV
I mean it's
interesting you mentioned
the twin turbos
this car goes right along
you hit the gas
it'll scoot along
and then one final question John
these things I'm looking at with the suspension
and brakes when I do the brakes I was just
going to have them tear into the suspension
is that something Sullivan Tyre could do
oh yeah I would think so
because they have
they have all the scan tools
necessary to reset everything when they're done
so and what's also kind of nice
about Sullivan Tyre
they actually have
a couple of guys now
they're sort of mobile guys
and they're the ones that have
all the sophisticated equipment
when stuff doesn't go the way it's
supposed to
and they work with
so they're sort of like
the equivalent of you know there's a
lot of tech assist
phone numbers and websites and stuff
they have sort of their own guy
who does that
and I met one
of the guys and he's just a sponge
for knowledge and he just
he just knows everything
and does everything so yeah
I would think Sullivan Tyre could
do this work without any problem
very good well thank you very much
you enjoy the rest of your Sunday
and I'll talk to you in the future
alright thanks Bill take care
thank you very much bye bye
now it's not often I meet somebody in person
because well I never leave the house
it seems like but
WATD had a booth at the
Plymouth seaside festival yesterday
and
Jim from North Reading showed up and now he's on the phone
Jim good morning
good morning highlight of my day
yesterday was meeting you
I wouldn't stop talking about it when I came home
well I'm
sad that that was the highlight of your day
because but I will
admit you know having you come down
and it's funny Rob Hackler
came down a little while later to help
break down the booth and I said
oh one of our regular listeners
and I said I love our listener
family I said one of our regular listeners
showed up and he's from
North Reading and he said
that's like 70 miles away
and I said yeah but he stopped on by
and it was great so I
was talking about you as much
as probably you were talking about me so
thank you
I did get to listen to the podcast
that I missed because of the streaming problems
this morning
and I was fascinated
by the Slate pickup truck
did you happen to get to
Newport?
No I didn't get to Newport to go see it
and I am
I kind of wonder
how they're really going to do because
they were really counting
on the federal tax
credit stuff and all that too
you know at close to
30,000
but I like
and I guess
everybody says this
everybody is looking for a small basic pickup truck
except they go out and they buy
GMC Denali
or Ford
F-150
with every bell and whistle
and special leather interior in it
but I like the idea of this
pickup truck that
is just a pickup truck
really pretended to be much more than that
I kind of wonder about
the SUV kit that you can buy
for it to turn it into a little
two door SUV but
only because I kind of
this is a fair amount
of assembly required to do that
because it actually comes with rear seat
airbags and stuff too
but just the idea of
this two door
three person I guess
five
or so foot bed that you can
you know that has the ability
to carry some stuff I mean there is days
there are days that I really wish
I had a pickup truck usually my little SUV
can do everything I need
to do except you know I wouldn't want to shovel dirt
in the back of it but
but just the idea of this basic
truck and
although I'm it's probably beyond
my technical level
the idea that you
can 3D print accessories
kind of
just fascinates me that they send you
the information it's like
if you have a 3D printer you can
make your own cup holders
or you make your own
iPhone holder or something
there is
part of this sort of
assemble it yourself
part of this truck that I really
kind of like and the idea that
it can go 150 to 200 miles on a charge
and plug it in and charge it back up
I think it has potential
and it's got
the guy behind us the Amazon guy so there's
plenty of money behind it
so what do you think?
yeah I mean
it's not like over the years
there has been some startups
of weird little electric
trucks and cars
and I've talked to a lot of these different people
and
they never go anywhere because they don't really
have the budget
I mean there was a, I forget the name
of it but there was a 3 wheel
or maybe 4 wheel
electric
car and it was actually
it was a cab driver
in New York I think that
he was an engineer by trade but he was
a cab driver most of the time
and he invented this little car
and I saw a
real one sort of at
the New York auto show
it never happened because
he didn't have the budget behind it
and you know when you got somebody like
the Amazon guy behind a vehicle
there's probably a pretty good chance
it's going to get built and it's going to get sold
but you still go back
I like talking car history with people
because if you look back
over the last 100 years
a lot of car companies went out of business
that was my concern but a $50
deposit I guess I'll gamble
well you know I was
I was
I think I've talked to half a dozen
people now that put $50 down
now the real question is
where are you in line to be able to get one
and you probably don't find out
until you put the deposit down or you still don't even
find out
but you know it's way better than
Tesla which started off
kind of building a sports car
so they had they took a Lotus
and took all the engine out of it
and built a sports car
electric sports car
they said they were going to build an electric supercar
sports car is going to zero to 60
and stupid you know two seconds or whatever
and I believe the deposit
was $50,000
and
unless you wanted one of the first 100
then it was a $200,000 deposit
I have no idea how much this thing costs
but I know a guy
$50,000 down
and that was five years ago
and he's still no closer to getting a car
than he was five years ago so I think
putting $50 down on a slate
I think I would take a chance
and you can get your money back
so
so what do you think Jim
going for it
and it was a pleasure meeting
you yesterday
it was a
I got to meet a few
of our local listeners as well
but the idea that you were
in the area and came down I hope you enjoyed yourself
at the little festival there
and
I did I spent a little money
I had some lunch and got to meet
my favorite talk show
Doctor Talk Show
well thanks Jim
have a good day John
bye bye
see Jesse
he's a fan
just because you pretend to be
and I know Jesse's having
trouble with his end here
working hard
never had trouble
never had trouble
why don't we take a break
pay some bills
you'll be sitting on 959 WATD
we'll be right back
for peace of mind on the road
AAA offers 24-7 roadside assistance
whether you're in your own vehicle
a friend's car or even a rental
combine that with great rates of insurance
hotel gas and buying savings
and discounts on 8700 brands
and you're covered on and off the road
get a special membership
offer today at
aaa.com
that's aaa.com
slash join
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hey there folks it's quinkelly reminding you to tune in
sunday night at five for the south shore's
first voice in sports talk radio
the sports exchange on match coverage of
local high school action as well as a relatable
voice on all things boston pro sports
we've got you covered live at five
every sunday night have a question for our host
miss last week's show or just want to share
a great sports story you can find us on twitter
at s-e on w-a-t-d
but remember mark your calendar folks
and we'll see you sunday night at five
for the sports exchange on ninety five nine
w-a-t-d
make an appointment sunday morning at eleven
on paul the car doctor
on ninety five nine w-a-t-d
now back to the car doctor
and welcome back to the car doctor program
a couple of questions that came in this week
i have a Toyota Tacoma that has a problem
the battery goes dead eventually
battery goes
dead eventually
take a
comma out of that question
the shop thought a parasitic
drain but after doing some testing after
twenty minutes any drain is gone
they suggest a new battery and an alternator
the battery because this one has died
a few times in the last month
the alternator because it didn't seem right
i replaced both myself and now
eight weeks later a dead battery
any thoughts on this
i think the shop was
headed in the right direction
i would look for
i talk about voltage drop a lot
i would
want to see what the alternator
output is
at the alternator and then at the
battery i've seen some
cases where
the alternator is putting out 14.2
14.3 volts
but when you check it at the battery
it's 13.2
so you've lost a volt somewhere along the
line
and only charging
13 volts or 12 and
a half volts or whatever you're seeing at the battery
is enough that over time
over that eight weeks or however
long it's been that's enough for the
battery just to go dead
so a little bit loses a little bit
every day to get driving it
so i would start by looking at corrosion
i'd pull the power
and ground wires off i'd clean them
i'd maybe look
don't just look at the cable ends
themselves look back a little bit
into the
leads and this is a
case where an ohm meter
doesn't always tell you the real story
you can check an ohm meter and put it on one
end of the negative cable and the other
end of the negative cable and
you know it says oh
there's good continuity
but you put it under a strain
you
crank the engine over
and all of a sudden you see voltage
drop because
there's a poor connection in there
so that could be it
there could be multiple ground
wires on this Tacoma
and you've lost one or two of them
for whatever reason
so there you go
this one i like
this question and two questions
came in that were kind of funny
one asked me about is jacy wittney
still around and i said
i said
no they got bought by i think it was car parts
or something and somebody emailed me this morning
they i use that same question
in a column and i said yeah you
can still get you know every kind of
g-part in the world from these people
but no more winky the cat
which was you could buy it
from jacy wittney catalogs it was like this
fake cat you put your back window and its eyes
would blink when you had the turn signals on
but this person says
um i have a silly
dumb question i watch a lot of youtube videos
on car repair i've heard several of the
hosts talk about letting the smoke out
when testing electronics
what does that mean
well it's an old expression
and it comes from the idea that
all electronics run on smoke
and when you let the smoke out
of the part it does not work
well they don't really have smoke in them
but if you short something out
by testing it
it'll overheat burn smoke
and all of a sudden now that part
doesn't work anymore because you shorted it out
uh so because you let the smoke out
not
there's no smoke but you did cause a short
and as good as
um there's a tool
called a power probe a lot of people use them
i have two versions of them
i have a $20 one that i bought off of
amazon uh basically what it is
it's a it's a fancy
test light that has power and ground so you
can actually apply ground to something
and you can apply power to something
well if you apply power to something that's
not supposed to have 12 volts of power
you will let the smoke out of it
so if it's something that's only designed
to run on 5 volts
the difference between the $20 amazon one
and the better version of the
innova one that i have
is the innova one actually has a circuit breaker
and so if you do something dumb
it actually pops
its own internal circuit breaker so it doesn't
damage the tool and may
not damage the component but you need to be
careful with them because you can't apply power
to places that aren't supposed to have power
um so if you apply power to a ground
it's going to pop the internal
circuit breaker so it doesn't damage the tool
the $20 one
i haven't tested it to see if it works
but i did spend $22 on it
and i don't want to break it so
and they are you know on
on complex electronics they're really handy
on simple electronics like things like
if you have a utility trailer or
any other kind of little trailer that the lights
don't work really good tool to
you know is it a bad ground it is a bad power
is it this that really
handy for that kind of thing so
my
thoughts would be buy a little
better one the $22 one
not quite as good get the
another one there we go
we used up an hour today until
next week make sure you wear your seatbelt
drive safely be good to your car if you see an emergency
vehicle by the side of the road slow down
and move over save lives talk to you on next
week bye bye
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