Garage Heroes In Training

GHIT 0350:  Ross Bentley Returns to Help Us Celebrate Episode 350 Ross Bentley has raced in Indy cars, literally written THE book on auto racing, his Ultimate Speed Secrets and associated books, and is the preeminent racing coach for both professional and amateur racing drivers around the world.  On every celebration episode since number 100, Ross has agreed to come on to celebrate the "In Trainin...

GHIT 0349:  Dave Carpenter from the Three Pedal Mafia's Cheaties Car At long last, we have secured Dave Carpenter for the podcast.  Dave drives in the orange Cheaties themed Cressida with the Three Pedal Mafia team.  In addition, Bill drove in the Cressida at the last race in NJMP where it finished 6th overall in spite of Bill driving.  With so much to talk about, we tried to limit it to the Lemon...

GHIT 0344:  Race Recap:  GHIT's Ladies Team Raced In our 1993 Honda Civic Our first ever race was at NJMP's Thunderbolt track with 24 Hours of Lemons and seems to be a lifetime ago.  We started out knowing nothing and that was probably being kind.  At this year's event, we entered our 1993 Honda Civic with its full theme to thank the Everyone Racers podcast for all their help getting us started an...

DwD 0348:  Coasting On Track - Allowed or Not One of the often quoted things that may have first come from Ross Bentley's "Speed Secrets" book series is that you should never be coasting on track, but should either be on the gas pedal/throttle or on the brake.  Ross has been on the podcast several times and we have discussed this aspect of racing with him a few times both on the podcast and at the...

GHIT 0347:  Jeremy Hall from Monkey House Racing Over the past few years, we had met Jeremy at many events, but it was more in passing.  Jeremy usually races with his team called Monkey House Racing, but for the Pittsburgh event he was racing with the Skunk Oil Racing team and our team in a 1999 BMW 3 series, an E36 for all the cool dudes.  Unfortunately, the event did not go well with two inciden...

DwD 346:  Track Selection:  The Impact on Learning On this episode of Dominating with Dawson, we wanted to discuss an aspect of racing education that can often be overlooked.  The typical decision path to getting a racing license or going to an HPDE event or a track day is to find the closest track to you that has an event that fits within your schedule.  This is likely to be what you do as well. ...

GHIT 0345:  Race Recap:  Bill Goes to Comp School Our first team member is trying to get his racing license at Gingerman with NASA Great Lakes.  This is his third weekend in a row and boy does it show.  Also, the hazards of prepping a car for a race weekend with a post-race hangover/zombie mechanic.  Bill also was racing with Glenn and Tim in his first ever NASA TREC race at Gingerman.  All race w...

GHiT 0343: Live Race Update from the 2022 NJMP Thunderbolt Race with the 24 Hours of Lemons (We do plug in the microphone after ~5 minutes, lol)  In a shortly, mostly live episode from the NJMP Thunderbolt paddock, Vicki and Jen are joined by Audra and Jess from the Shifting Points podcast to talk about day 1 of this years 24 Hours of Lemons race.  The ladies were driving in our 1993 Honda Civic D...

GHIT 0342:  The Tyler Stank After having better answers to several of our Dominating with Dawson's, it was only appropriate that we invited him onto the podcast.  We first met Tyler while iRacing and have since been paying attention as he has begun driving in the real world as well.  His middle name really is Ayrton and there can be no better reason to have him on the podcast, but he is also notab...

DwD 0341:  The difference between building a car and developing a car Race Weekend Shuffle in place:  We have talked a lot about building a race car and prepping a car for the track.  But that Is only the beginning and just when you thought it was over, it has only begun.  The best way to think about it is that you now have a ticket to enter the event and part of your future will be developing the...

GHIT 0340: Getting the Most Out of Instruction at a Track Day or HPDE etc Track time is a precious commodity.  It is often difficult to fit into your schedule, it takes a significant amount to prep for a weekend (both the car and the driver and often simply getting to the track).  It is also not free to attend the event.  We try to give some examples of what to do and what not to do before an at a...

GHIT 0339:  Late to Grid Podcast Host Bill Snow Our paths have crossed seemingly many times, but we have never met until now.  The Late to Grid podcast is aimed at covering amateur racing and helping grow our sport.  Since our podcast goals are almost identically aligned, we thought it would be great to have Bill on and share some stories and maybe we could learn from him some of his vast mechanic...

GHIT 0338:  Jess From the Shifting Points podcast's First Track Day We have an upcoming race at NJMP's Thunderbolt track next weekend, so we took advantage of the NASA Northeast's HPDE event this weekend to get a bit of track time for our friends from the Shifting Points podcast who will be racing with us.  This will be Jess's first ever race and today was her first ever track day and great prepar...

DwD 0337:  Dashes, Switches, and Control Panels Vicki has been hard at work upgrading our dashboard and controls in our Honda Civic race car.  She also has a favorite past time at a track by looking into each car and trailer set up to see what others have done and ideas that would improve our cars (and trailers).  We thought it might be a good thing to discuss and provide a list of things that we...

GHIT 0336:  NASA's TREC Endurance racing series with Bryan Lingruen As you know, we love endurance racing.  Endurance racing allows us to get a huge amount of track time and competition in a single weekend.  NASA has recently started an endurance racing series to compliment their sprint racing and HPDE weekend events.  The TREC series currently races at the same tracks on a Friday and the races ra...

DwD 0335:  Bought Not Built? One of best things about racing is how welcoming racing has been to us and in general to everyone we see at the track.  One related aspect of this is the application of a built not bought aspect to racing that is often used in jest, but can divide the paddock, either by accident or intent.  However, just because you or your team may have mechanical experience and talen...

GHIT 0334:  How to Test Your Car at the Track with Scott Robertson We often hear how important it is to test your car prior to racing.  While listening to Scott's Track Walking podcast (a can't miss podcast), Scott was discussing how he and Becky were able to conduct a full track test and tune evaluation of their vehicle during a recent HPDE.  Since Scott is a respected coach and offers a service...

GHIT 0333:  One Lap of America 2022 – Marlon Sumlin – Sundae Cup Class In the first of a series, we reflect back on the 2022 One Lap of America with Marlon Sumlin who completed the event in his Mazda 2 Sundae Cup car.  This was Marlon's first One Lap of America, and it will not be his last.  We talk about Marlon's impressions from his first OLoA, how it is to compete in a low horsepower, Sundae Cu...

DwD 0332:  Pit Stops – Practicing and Some Best Practices Once you start to progress as drivers and as a team, one of the more important aspects of racing and one of the most overlooked and potentially ignored aspects of endurance racing is minimizing you time lost on track during the pit stops.  As always, the over-riding most important aspects is to maintain focused on the safety of you, your te...

GHIT 0331:  SCCA's New Endurance Racing Series with Jon Krolewicz  John Krolewicz has been racing for many years and helped start the Track Night In America Program for the SCCA.  Now he is organizing the new SCCA Enduro series that is kicking of shortly with their first race at Nelson Ledges.  The Sports Car Club of America is one of the oldest performance car organizations and hold nationwide ra...

DwD 0330:  CPR and Racing – Correct, Pause, and Recover) CPR is typically referred to in a medical emergency.  But in racing, CPR is in reference to Correct, Pause, and Recover when you are out of sorts on the track.  The thought behind the acronym is that when your car gets out of shape or out of control on a track, one of the things that should be taken into consideration is that this can often...

GHIT 0329:  Lemons Rally Wrap Up of the Recent Four Corners Rally with Jeff Stobbs Rally Master Jeff Stobbs returns to summarize the recent Four Corners Rally.  We missed the daily updates for this one due to a whole buffet of reasons, including multiple times zones, work travel, food sickness, etc.  So instead of our nightly updates, we thought we would try a summary of the entire event.  We will...

DwD 0328:  Best Car Mods to Go Faster – With Guest DwD Judge Tyler Ben is joined by honorary guest DwD Judge Tyler for a special Dominating with Dawson where we go over what are the best things you can modify in your car to perform better.  Ben goes with brakes pads and brake fluid upgrades.  Tyler goes with upgraded tires.  While both of these are great additions, Bill and Vicki disagree slightly...

GHIT 0327:  John Kolesa on AER (American Endurance Racing) John Kolesa started American Endurance Racing several years ago and Bill had a great time racing with the series at PittRace, so we had to have him on to officially introduce everyone to the series if you are not already familiar with AER.  Since starting the series in 2014, AER has assumed a position towards the more competitive/higher pe...

DwD 0326:  Driving What You Got On Track - Two Ways On this episode of Dominating with Dawson, we go over two aspects of driving on track with the "car" you have.  This was originally intended to address the aspect of driving the car you have and adapting your driving to the car as it is during a weekend or a stint.  Most of us are not fortunate enough to have the ability to dial in a car on the f...