Garage Heroes In Training

GHIT 0400:  Celebrate Episode 400 with ROSS BENTLEY Our streak continues with celebrating every fifty episodes with Ross Bentley returning to the podcast.  During this episode, we have our traditional questions related to improving as drivers, but since it is near the end of the season, we wanted to go over some goals for the upcoming season.  Ross not only assist us in coming up with a goal or tw...

DwD 0399:  Why You Need to Improve Driving Off Line In the beginning, everyone is obsessively concerned with driving on "the line" when on a track.  During this Dominating with Dawson episode, we talk about the importance of driving off line and getting as good as possible at driving off line.  There are many, many reasons why it is important, and we try to go into several of them including that t...

GHIT 0398:  Andrew Purvis and his Coyote Swapped Fox Body We met Andrew Purvis at our NY Safety Track track day with the brothers Korf.  During the event, Alan was lusting after Andrew's Coyote swapped Fox Body Mustang and we all had a great time.  Even better, Andrew was able to catch Vicki's spin intervention on video for us, lol.  Andrew is a big time car guy and obviously knows his way around...

DwD 0397:  Tweed Motorsports Live from the AER Race at NJMP Thunderbolt We join Tweed Motorsports live from the season ending AER race at NJMP Thunderbolt.  Gary from Tweed Motorsports raced with us at Thompson (and for some reason is still talking to us) and agreed to be adopted for the AER event at NJMP and provide updates throughout the 14 hour race.  We hope this makes you feel like you were t...

DwD 0396:  Post Race Weekend Hangover Minimization The post race (weekend) hangover is real, and it has nothing to do with what your drink of choice was during the weekend.  It often comes from a loss of sleep, a lot of activity, and the overuse of your adrenal glands during the weekend.  In the end, Monday or often especially Tuesday, you usually are in a partial zombie state and are from perform...

GHiT 0395:  GHiT Team Update November 2022 On this latest team update, we go into our recent efforts related to racing and preparing our cars, as well as a few other weird things that have been happening in and around our team.  This was recorded after the last Lemons race of 2022 at NHMS where Alan lead the Moostang team and where Jeremy and the boys competed in the El Jeffe race truck.  The full...

DwD 0394:  How to Capitalize on Uphill and Downhill Areas of a Track In past Dominating with Dawsons, we have talked about the affect that camber has on track driving.  During this episode, we go into the effect that uphill and downhill sections can have going into and coming out of turns.  We also go into how to know when you are at the limit and what Vicki is concerned about when pushing toward...

GHIT 0393:  Race Review - Lucky Dog Race at CMP with Read Tull and Ben Dawson We start the episode with Read Tull who races in the southeast and had Ben as his first HPDE instructor.  Read entered his E36 into the last Lucky Dog event in the southeast for the 2022 season and we share some common pain.  The weekend was a mixed bag of several highs and lows, but as always, Lucky Dog ran a great even...

GHIT 0391:  Car Control with Nik Romano There are a few fundamental skills that truly separate drivers.  The top two that come to mind are car control and race craft.  Nik Romano owns FastSideways and also currently drives professionally for Toyota.  FastSideways is a driving school that specializes in holding events that offer personal coaching to focus specifically on improving your car control...

DwD 0392:  Balancing Min Distance vs Max Speed On this week's Dominating with Dawson, we start a discussion on the competing priorities of maximizing speed and minimizing distance.  Obviously, the balance of these will lead to the fastest lap times, but some areas of a track or sequences of a track will be optimized by sacrificing one or the other in certain areas to reduce lap time.  This concept...

GHIT 0390:  Race Update Live for NHMS with Jeremy Hall We caught up with Jeremy live front the paddock as Sunday morning was starting up  Jeremy allows us to live vicariously through him as he provided a quick update to the weekend so far and how things were looking as the race started at New Hampshire Motor Sports this year.  Saturday proved to be a challenging day for the El Jeffe Trophy truck t...

DwD 0389:  Catching a Car – FWD vs RWD – This one goes way, way, way off topic While we often talk about car control, we have yet to really discuss the differences between catching a car that is front wheel drive vs catching a car that is rear wheel drive.  During the discussion, something comes up that Vicki does on track that totally derails the rest of the discussion.  We will likely have to co...

GHIT 0388:  Phil Wurz From Bimmerworld Returns For a Second Lap Phil Wurz is the Sales and Operations Manager for Bimmerworld and also races with the Bimmerworld team at track across the nation.  We catch up with Phil on what has been going on with the Bimmerworld team's racing team this season.  We also go into the SpecE46 series and the cars involved with them.  Phil and the team at Bimmerworld...

DwD 0387:  Responding to an Incident On track In Front of You Sometimes when you are on track, another car in front of you may have a problem.  It could be leaking fluids, losing parts, go off track, or have contact with another car or other object.  For this episode, we go into some of the more common scenarios and several options to you as a driver to minimize the potential for making the incide...

GHIT 0386:  Brandon Wilson – NASA Great Lakes HPDE 4 Group Leader and Grassroots Racer Brandon Wilson was one of the first instructors to ride with Bill ever and has been with NASA Great Lakes for well over a decade and is now the HPDE 4 Group Leader.  During this episode, we talk about how Brandon has worked his way into he driver that he is and where he would like to progress further, both as a...

DwD 0385:  Tire Mounting and Balancing - For The Track For this episode, we go over what to do and what to look out for when mounting and balancing your tires, especially for track use.  As with most of high performance driving, we are pushing the tire and wheel/rim more than is "normal" and therefore we are more sensitive to certain aspects and maintenance practices than a normal, daily driven ve...

GHIT 0384:  Justin Okamoto – JustinCFC on Instagram One of the highlights of the GridLife event at Lime Rock was finally meeting Justin Okamoto in person after many months of interacting online.  Justin is relatively new to racing his own vehicles but has been associated with motorsports for well over a decade.  He worked himself through the GridLife HPDE sessions and has recently began racing his...

GHIT 0383:  Our Fall Failage 2022 Lemons Rally Wrap Up Ryan, Matt, Audra, and Vicki go through their first ever Lemons rally that started in Boston, went to Albany, NY, Burlington, Vt, and eventually ended up near Boston.  As with all things Lemons, it was a ton of fun and many, many laughs were had.  On this episode, we try to summarize what the rally entails and then cover some of the many highl...

DwD 0382:  Race Seat vs OEM Seats:  Advantages/Disadvantages and When to Change to a Race Seat We talk about some of the key differences between a racing seat vs your OEM seat.  This also includes the seat belt and harness differences.  Obviously, there is a difference between the construction and installation of the race seat, but their use also makes a few "normal" use cases a bit more difficult...

GHIT 0381:  DJ Alessandrini - Race Driver and Sim Racer Bill first saw DJ Alessandrini when he was doing some friendly YouTube stalking of the GLTC series and has been following him ever since.  DJ has also started a podcast (Lizard Brains Podcast) of his own with co-host Tom O'Gorman and it has become one of our can't miss podcasts.  We end up talking all things Sundae Cup, podcasting, driving an...

GHIT 0380:  Lemons Rally Wrap Up – Day 2 of the 2022 Fall Failage Rally Day two has concluded and we are reporting live from a restaurant arcade somewhere in either NY State or Vermont.  It has been a long trip and another long day on the road.  Spirits remain high and the rain has held off to this point.  In addition, we have three entrants with birthdays today, so everyone wish them all a happy...

GHIT 0379:  Lemons Rally Wrap Up – Day 1 of the 2022 Fall Failage Rally This episode is recorded live from the end point of day one for the Fall Failage Rally.  The rally started near Boston and ended near Albany NY.  We have a ton of photos posted to the Garage Heroes In Training podcast and many, many others can be found using the hashtag #lemonsrally on the IG.  Sorry for a bit of the backgroun...

DwD 0378:  Racing 101:  Jargon – What is Brake Pad Walk Back or Knock Back On our racing 101 series, we often go over jargon that can confuse you at the track.  In this episode, we start to talk about brake pad walk back or knock back.  This can occur on many cars and be caused by several sources.  We try to talk about what it would feel like on your car and what you can do to minimize its effect...

GHIT 0377:  Gary McCormick From Tweed Motorsports After racing, well almost racing with us, at our last race at Thompson, Gary is now a guest on the podcast and welcomed back at any event we attend in the future.  We talk with Gary about his experience with rugby and his transition from traditional ball and stick sports into what is now his racing team - Tweed Motorsports.  Having raced in many di...

DwD 0376:  Threshold Braking – One Tool to Rule Them All ? On this Dominating with Dawson, return to the topic of threshold braking and address several aspects of the technique.  In addition, we start to review several ways to practice the technique safely on track.  We then discuss the proper use of the technique, where and when, as well as how to determine when to use the technique and potential...