Garage Heroes In Training

DwD 0548:   The Pizza Episode – Where is the best pizza, where is the worst pizza, and where is the worst pizza? We welcomed Ben back with one of the most technical question we have ever had.   We asked Ben where to get the best pizza?   Where is the worst pizza?   And finally, what is the most overrated pizza?   We did go into pizza types and specific pizza stores.   Obviously, you may have a dif...

GHiT 0547:   Towing and Trailering for Racing-Part 1 While we love almost everything about racing, one thing that is at best a necessary evil is towing.   When we started, we knew nothing.   If you look at our past towing exploits, we prove that over and over.   Besides being expensive, towing errors can be dangerous.   This is part one of the episode we needed.   We start off with the tow vehicle...

DwD 0546:   You Are The Stig – How Would You Teach the Guest of the Week This question originated from a listener comment.   The premise is that you are the Stig and part of your responsibilities is to teach this week's guest for their hot lap.   What would you do?   We discuss.   Did we get it correct or do you have a better plan? A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/TheStigTeachesHow We...

GHiT 0545:   Randy Bish Returns for His Second Lap Randy Bish has been a friend for many years, even after his rally car broke down at the starting line near our home and he stayed to "fix" it for longer than the rest of the rally.   On this episode, we catch up with how things have been going, what the team The League of Legitimate Nigerian Businessmen have been up to and why he, well so many ite...

DwD 0544:   Listener Goals for 2024 We love goals and apparently it is rubbing off on our listeners.   We had several write in with their 2024 goals.   We congratulate everyone on their goals and add a few suggestions to help with each of the goals mentioned.   If you have goals for this season, please let us know.   Hopefully this is part one of many. BEST OF LUCK MARY!!!!  We are rooting for you...

GHiT 0543:   Spec3 Racing with Taylor Johnson We love talking all thing racing and about as many series as we can.   Today, we talked with Taylor Johnson about the Spec3 series and how this may be the just the things for your E36 BMW.   The series started a few years ago but has recently been seeing significant growth in many areas of the country.   It is a very competitive series and has a high l...

  GHiT 0542:  Ben Marouski on Racing Mini Cooper's and FCP Euro Ben Marouski races his Mini Cooper in Grid Life's GLTC series and is the Director of Creative Services for FCP Euro.  During this episode, we talk about all things racing related in Mini Coopers, GLTC, and FCP Euro.  If you haven't seen the Mini Cupper series on YouTube already, we highly recommend the series to show what is possible...

DwD 0541:   Revving out the Engine:   What it is, Why, and Why Not On this DwD, we go into what it means to rev out an engine.   We also go into the reasons why you would do that from a   performance perspective.   We then go into some of the factors that may affect whether you want to do this routinely or whether you would prefer to shift a bit earlier or only go to the redline for special occasi...

GHiT 0540:   Lara Vernon Returns with Tons of Exciting News It has been a while since we had Lara Vernon on the podcast.   Since our last episode, she has been racing with tons of cars and in a wide variety of series.   We were long overdue for an update and always love to catch up with Lara and her exceptional racing exploits, including her new race car and recent testing in her first open wheel...

DwD 0539:   Passing:   On the Inside vs On The Outside One a racing driver we know has a favorite aspect of racing.  His name is Ben and he is our resident expert and namesake for Dominating with Dawson.  As a gift, we let him talk about the details of passing in a turn and aspects that differ when passing on the inside versus passing on the outside of a turn. A link to the episode is: https://tin...

GHiT 0538:   Mechanical "Saves" or What to Do When Things Go Sideways How many times when you are working on a car have thing gone as planned?   One of the things we have noticed is that as you grow as a mechanic, you learn more and more ways that things can go poorly and that one of the things that the great mechanics know is how to get out of the problem in an easy way and save a ton of time.  ...

DwD 0537:   Jargon 101:   What is Car Handling and What We Prefer We realized that we talk a lot about the handling of a car and have never really defined it.   So We do.   Jargon 101 is back!   Plus we talk about what type of handling we prefer or would like to have when the car is refined to our preferences/liking. A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/PreferredCarHandling We hope you en...

GHiT 0536:   Adam Jabaay – Discusses GridLife 2023 and 2024 Adam Jabaay returns to talk about what a great year 2023 was for the GridLife season and all the changes going forward for 2024.   If you haven't tried a GridLife event, you should not miss one that's local to you.   The original goal for GridLife was to hold the racing events that they wanted for all their friends.   With the season pass...

GHiT 0535:   Goals:   2023 Review and 2024 – The Best is Yet to Come In this episode, we talk with Nick Fontana and Armin Mejia about the Northeast GT Racing series.   The series is based on having multiple classes racing based on power to weight that will compete in endurance races throughout the year leading up to the championship weekend at Watkins Glenn.   Being endurance races and located mos...

DwD 0534:   Maintaining Your Tires in Amateur Endurance Racing Anyone who watches Formula 1 hears all about the importance of maintaining the tires during the race and the strategy implications.   However, does this matter in amateur endurance racing, especially when racing 200 tread wear tires.   Fact or Friction. A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/TireMaint We hope you enjoy this epis...

DwD 0533:   Rubbin's Racin' – Welcome to Ben's Soapbox In this week's Dominating with Dawson, we go into the old saying that rubbin's racing, and out thoughts on where this belongs in amateur racing.   Many long time listeners knows where this will go, but the soapbox discussion was fantastic. A link to the episode is: https://tinyurl.com/RubbinsRacin We hope you enjoy this episode! If you would l...

GHiT 0532:   Goals:   2023 Review and 2024 – The Best is Yet to Come Pre-Podcast Question:  How was YOUR 2022 season? In this episode, we talk about how our team did over the 2023 season.   We also go into what we are targeting for 2024.   The upcoming year is going to target quite a bit of growth as drivers and racers.   As always, look back and see that we are still "In Training".  (always will...

DwD 0531:   Options to Balance Risk vs Lap Time When on track, there is always a certain degree of risk.   During this episode, we cover some of the aspects where the initial assumption would be that faster lap times increase the associated risk.   However, this may or may not be the case and also there are ways to take small risks and still push the limits towards going significantly faster.   We...

GHiT 0530:   Garage Update - Cage Party and Replacing an Engine It was a very productive series of weeks at the GHiT Garage.   During this episode, we go over our latest cage party, where we helped our friends with caging their 1993 Honda Civic.   We go over the process and what we have learned working with our friends at the Three Pedal Mafia/Everyone Racers Podcast.   We then also went into the...

DwD 0529:   Burnout – How to Know and How to Avoid We start with two different definitions of burnout that are related to racing.   We then focus on what happens with "too much" racing, how to identify when this occurs and what you can do to avoid this or recover from this.   This can take all the fun away from racing and that is just wrong. We then return and end with some tips to help you with t...

GHiT 0528:   Club Spec Racing with Heyward Wagner for the SCCA When we first started, we were looking for one car to race in every endurance racing series.   Obviously, Heyward Wagner is a long time listener who never misses an episode and wanted to help us with this but take it even another step further.   (Tongue firmly planted in our cheek)   With the Club Spec Series, the SCCA is trying to get...

DwD 0527:   Breaking Plateaus or Getting Out of a Rut As a high performance driver or a racing driver, many drivers will reach a point in their progression where the improvement ceases and you can find yourself stuck at a certain level of performance or even stuck in a performance rut.   In this episode, we try to cover a few of the ways to break out of this and continue on your individual path of...

GHiT 0526:   Dion von Moltke – Author of "Send It – The Art and Science of Racing Cars" Dion von Moltke has been a professional racing driver and is created and is currently coaching using the Blayze platform to personally coach drivers across the world, including several members on our team.   And then last week, we saw that he had written a book and we ordered it instantly and it has quickly bec...

GHiT 0525:   Zach Caldwell Returns and We Discuss the Upcoming Vannonball 2024 – Once Wasn't Enough? or how a $500 race van does 50,000 miles of racing When last we spoke to Zach Caldwell, we were reviewing the inaugural Vannonball Run.   He was a bit weathered and had survived the event.   Naturally after some recovery and an exceptional example of selective memory, Zach has determined an even mo...

DwD 0524:   Autocross v Track – Differences and Similarities We take advantage of Audra and her vast experience at autocrossing to discuss where autocross can help your track driving and several of the differences that may need to be modified when on track.   In a future episode, we will talk about translating from track driving to autocross.   Cross training can only help your driving skill. A li...