Garage Heroes In Training

GHiT 0580:   Bryan Lanham from the Adrenaline Chunkies Bryan Lanham hasn't been racing with the 24 Hours of Lemons for a long time, but he and his team have had quite a lot happen in a relatively short time.   Once we saw the latest theme, we knew we had to have him on.   If you are thinking of racing Lemons, you can learn a lot from this team. A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/NinjaTu...

DwD 0582:   Comp School Stories and Tips Ben, Vicki, and Bill talk about their comp school days, how things went, and some tips for attending Comp School.   Ben and Bill went to two different NASA regions and Vicki attended hers at a recent SCCA event.   Comp School is where you go to get qualified for a novice racing license and after several successful races, you can qualify for your full racing...

GHiT 0578:   Brad Lee Finally Races Wheel to Wheel  Brad Lee has been working with us for several years to get to race wheel to wheel on track with us.   Obviously, he should aim much higher, but we get to hear how his first race went with us at PittRace.   This is the last and 4 th part of our PittRace event, and we hope you enjoy the episode as much as Brad did the race. A link to the episode is...

DwD 0577:  Tool Organization - At Garage/Home and At the Track On a Ben-less Dominating with Dawson, we go over one of Bill's obsessions, tool organization.  He has tested almost every style of tool organization and evaluated them for use in a garage/home, as well as when travelling to and from the race track.  We initially go into several of the tool box solutions that we have tried and liked for...

GHiT 0576:   Bob Miller – Your Oil Needs for Racing Bob Miller joins us to talk about motor oil and oil analysis.   Bob runs the Racers Oil Analysis Resource that will provide you with oil analysis and recommendations for your particular use case.   Are you using the correct oil?   Are you changing it too soon or not soon enough?     That and more.   Plus we talk about racing his Kia Rio in the On...

DwD 0575:  Car Livery - Part 1:  Base Coat/Color Change Options In our first emergency episode of Dominating with Dawson, without Dawson, we tried to cover an area of racing that we have investigated repeatedly, the livery.   In this episode, Vicki and Bill go over several ways to change your car's color for a base to your livery.   We also cover difficulty, costs, and other things that we have fo...

GHiT 0574:   Getting Our SCCA Racing Licenses Vicki, Audra, and Elizabeth went to Thompson for the Thursday/Friday event that if they passed would give them their novice racing license that becomes a full racing license after 5 more races without any incidents.   How did the weekend go?   Did anyone pass?   What did we learn?   What we would recommend before, during, and after the event?   Its in...

GHiT 0573:   Race Recap – PittRace 2024 – Part 3 Pedal Mafia Our race season has begun with our kickoff race at PittRace with the 24 Hours of Lemons.   We were joined by several members of the National Championship winning racing team, the Three Pedal Mafia.   You all know them, they are the team we always refer to as our sister team and they refer to us as "Who".   Jeff, Jim, and Eric drove with...

DwD 0572:   How to Learn a Track As Quickly As Possible Bill is about to compete in the One Lap of America and will be visiting most of the tracks for the first time.   Ben discusses several ways to learn a track more quickly and may be helpful for you at your next new to you track day.   A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/LearnATrackFast   We hope you enjoy this episode! If you would l...

GHiT 0571:   Race Recap – PittRace 2024 – Part 2 Our race season has begun with our kickoff race at PittRace with the 24 Hours of Lemons.   We were joined by the famous Slippery Slope racing team and shared a garage together.   The drove their 1991 E34 5 series BMW in class A and made a great showing with much progress over their first year of endurance racing.   We talk with Audra, Max, Larry, an...

GHiT 0570:   Race Recap – PittRace 2024 – Part 1 Our race season has begun with our kickoff race at PittRace with the 24 Hours of Lemons.   We had a large team and we over did our theming effort this time.   The race was fantastic, until it wasn't, but we made lemonade out of it in the end.   Good racing Saturday was followed by some race ending issues, but we did end up taking home a bit of hardw...

GHiT 0568:   Tom Lomino Was Long Overdue Racing with Tom Lomino has been racing with us since we started and long before we arrived.   He has a predisposition for VW's and has raced a few since he started with great success and sometimes with great struggles.   We review Tom's racing history, his VW successes and struggles, and many of the various escapades Tom has been involved with since he bega...

DwD 0569:   How to Pass a Faster/More Powerful Car On Track An article by Randy Pobst in Grassroots Motorsports magazine stirred up this bit of conversation related to passing fast and more powerful cars on track.   While this may initially seem to be impossible, it usually the only way we are able to pass cars on track, lol A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/PassingFasterCars We hope y...

DwD 0567:   Gripping your Steering Wheel We discuss the best way to grip a steering wheel and hand position with a bit more related topics.   This may be one of the few times where more is not better.   A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/HulkNoSmash 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 ou...

GHiT 0566:   Elizabeth Jolly – Lap 3, Plus a New Plan for Vicki It had been too long since we had Elizabeth Jolly on the podcast.   She was at our first ever All Ladies team endurance race at Thompson and has learned a considerable amount as a driver, a racer, and as a mechanic for her race cars.   She has progressed her driving to securing her SCCA racing license and competes in her Spec E30 BMW....

DwD 0565:   Car Setup Targets What is faster, setting up a car as fast as it can be or setting it up to maximize driver comfort with the car performance.   This gets even more complicated when dealing with a team of drivers for an endurance race.   Ben discusses this and provides a few examples of what to do and what will give the best performance for a given race.   Did we miss something?   Do yo...

  GHiT 0564:   Johan Schwartz – All About Racing and Car Control We loved our car control clinic at CMP a few weeks ago and Johan Schwartz was kind enough to come onto the podcast this week.   During the episode, we talk about a lot of Johan's past and how he has progressed to this point in his racing career.   We also talk about his car control clinic which was very helpful to us and well worth t...

DwD 0563:   Proper Preseason Preparation Performed Perfectly With the season rapidly approaching, we wanted to go over some tips to prepare you and your team for the first event.   The reduction in stress from beign prepared can actually make you perform better and safer.   A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/ProperPrep   We hope you enjoy this episode! If you would like to help grow our...

GHiT 0562:   Racing Subarus the Best way with Dewey Dewitt Dewey Dewitt, fresh off his 2023 Time Attack Championship with GridLife, joins us to go into the details for properly racing and preparing Subaru's for racing and track use.   We focus on addressing basic upgrades to protect the car during high performance driving.   Then look at potential performance upgrades and the potential implication...

  GHiT 0561:   Recap of our Car Control Clinic at CMP At long last, Vicki's Christmas training gift was here.   We attended a Car Control Clinic at CMP's skid pad with Johan Schwartz.   Vicki and Bill both grew as drivers and improved their car control, car recovery, and even a bit of drifting was had. A great event that we try to summarize for you.   If you can attend one of Johan's events, you d...

DwD 0560:   What Not to Do Before Going on Track for the First Time There are several things that can affect your starting up driving on track or autocrossing.   In this episode, we go over many of the things that you should not wait far.   Its almost a Jeff Foxworthy skit episode but in reverse. A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/WhatNotToWaitFor We hope you enjoy this episode! If you...

GHiT 0559:   Trailer and Towing – Part 2 We start off with a quick review of some listener feedback.   Apparently, some of our listeners have created some pretty amazing trailer and towing setups and we would love to see them and share with everyone.   We would love nothing better than to help prevent any accidents, or even close calls, and hopefully improve everyone's trailer and towing game to t...

DwD 0558:   Listener Question:   What is the difference between a "better" driver and a "faster" driver In an earlier podcast, we talked about how Bill is looking to become a faster driver as opposed to becoming a better driver.   A few listeners have written in and asked why he said that and if they are the same.   While we agree with trying to improve as a driver and getting faster, they can oft...

GHiT 0557:   Scott Robertson on Racing Car Setups and Optimized Data Interpretation Scott Robertson is the co-host of the Track Walking podcast and team member of Robertson Racing.   With Scott hosting an upcoming webinar on data interpretation, we couldn't pass up the chance to talk with him ahead of time.   While we hate to impose on fellow podcasters to come on our podcast, every time we talk w...

GHiT 0556:   Rally Master Jeff returns to Review the Virginia is for Clunkers Rally and Preview the upcoming Route 66 Rally Jeff Stobbs, Lemons resident Rally Master, returns to review the recent Virginia is for Clunkers rally and all the goings on for the first rally to occur in a single state.   Several great entries and several teams are still missing in action. Then we shift over to the upcomi...